Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic - a key leader of the revolt that toppled former President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000 - was assassinated Wednesday by gunmen who ambushed him outside the government complex, police sources said. Djindjic, 50, died in a Belgrade hospital after having been shot in the abdomen and back, the sources told The Associated Press. Two people were arrested and one was injured in the shooting, witnesses said. The government building where Djindjic was ambushed was sealed off by heavy state security, and three ambulances were parked in front. Police stopped traffic in downtown Belgrade, searching through cars and checking passengers.
Djindjic appeared to have been targeted last month, when a truck suddenly cut into the lane in which his motorcade was traveling to Belgrade's airport. The motorcade narrowly avoided a collision, and Djindjic later dismissed the Feb. 21 alleged assassination attempt as a "futile effort" that could not stop democratic reforms. "If someone thinks the law and the reforms can be stopped by eliminating me, then that is a huge delusion," Djindjic was quoted as saying by the Politika newspaper at the time. The assassination of Djindjic heralds turbulent days for Serbia and a bitter power struggle for his successor. Otpor, or Resistance, an independent pro-democracy group, said the shooting means "criminals have won the battle" in Serbia. Djindjic had many enemies because of his pro-reformist and Western stands. He was key in Milosevic's extradition to the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Djindjic, a pro-Western leader, saw Serbia's fate as linked to the West and favored greater cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal, where Milosevic now is standing trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. He was pivotal in arresting and handing Milosevic to the war crimes tribunal in June 2001. For this, he was blasted by Serbian nationalists, including his former ally Vojislav Kostunica, who stepped down as Yugoslav president earlier this month after the formation of a new state, Serbia and Montenegro.
No end of suspects in this killing. |