Suspects held over assassination of Serbian leader

POLICE yesterday arrested several members of an underworld network accused of assassinating Serbia's prime minister, a pro-Western leader who made enemies by pushing for the arrest of mobsters and war crimes suspects.

Zarko Korac, Serbia's deputy prime minister, said that "although several arrests were made, many of the suspects are still in hiding and have gone underground".

A government-imposed state of emergency, which curtailed some civil liberties, took effect yesterday, a day after snipers killed Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in downtown Belgrade as he stepped out of his armoured car en route to meetings at a government building.

The army's top body, the Supreme Defence Council, raised the level of combat readiness and instructed the military to assist the police in the search for the assassins.

A statement on Wednesday night by the Serbian Cabinet blamed Milorad Lukovic, a warlord loyal to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, and an underworld network known as the "Zemun Clan" after a Belgrade suburb, for allegedly organising the killing.

"Their aim was to trigger fear, lawlessness and chaos in the country," the statement said. "The assassination ... was an attempt by this group to crush the fight against organised crime and help its individual members evade arrest."

Mr Korac did not specify who was arrested, but indicated Mr Lukovic was not among the suspects in custody.

"Djindjic assassinated by the Zemun Clan," Belgrade newspapers headlined yesterday over photographs of known members of the Serbian underworld and pictures of their arrest warrants.

The more infamous mob leaders include Dejan Milenkovic, known as "Bugsy"; Mile Lukovic, known as "Godfather"; Vladimir Milisavljevic, whose alias is "Idiot"; and Mladjan Micic, nicknamed "Rat".

Police established checkpoints throughout Belgrade amid fears the volatile Balkan country could plunge into violence in a possible power struggle for Mr Djindjic's successor.

The party of former Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, Mr Djindjic's political foe, criticised the Cabinet for ordering a state of emergency, calling it an "extreme and potentially hazardous measure" that would add to a "climate of fear and mistrust".

"Little has been done in building real democracy in Serbia," Mr Kostunica's party said, adding the authorities should have invited all political parties to form a "transitional government".

Mr Djindjic had many enemies because of his pro-reformist and Western stands and his crackdown on organised crime, which is rampant in Serbia and across the Balkans.

He was despised by some for his role in toppling Milosevic in October 2000 and orchestrating his handover to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2001.