Madrid: Spanish police have arrested three
men, including one who had been a fugitive for five years
after being convicted for the 2003 assassination of Serbia's
prime minister, the Interior Ministry said in a statement
on Sunday.
Vladimir Milisavljevic, Luka Bojovic and Sinisa Petric
were arrested as they met in a downtown restaurant yesterday
in the eastern coastal city of Valencia, the statement said.
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was killed by a
sniper in front of government headquarters in Belgrade in
March 2003.
In 2007, Milisavljevic was convicted and sentenced in
absentia in Serbia to 35 years for his involvement in the
assassination of Djindjic and to another 40 years for other
crimes. He had been on the run since the slaying.
Milisavljevic was one of a dozen former gang members and
paramilitaries sentenced for their roles in the assassination.
The hit man and the mastermind got 40 years in prison.
Bojovic, 39, was wanted in connection with 20 murders in
Serbia, the Netherlands and Spain, the statement said, and was
also under investigation for other crimes in Switzerland,
Romania and the US.
However, Maja Kovacevic, a judge and spokeswoman for
Serbia's Court for Organized Crime, which handles high-profile
cases, said today that Bojovic is not wanted for Djindjic's
assassination but is wanted for three other unrelated
killings.
Kovacevic told The Associated Press the indictment
against Bojovic alleges that he took over and organised the
fugitive members of the gang that killed Djindjic, the Zemun
Clan, who managed to flee a police sweep that followed the
assassination in March 2003.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, February 11, 2012, 00:22