Milosevic’s wife wanted for president’s murder

THE wife of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic is being hunted in connection with the murder of ex-Serbian president Ivan Stambolic.

Serbia’s interior ministry said Mirjana Markovic had fled to Russia as a police investigation into the recent assassination of prime minister Zoran Djindjic raised suspicions that she was involved in Stambolic’s murder.

The ministry said police were “searching intensely” for Markovic, citing “credible suspicions of her involvement in the murder”.

An order to detain Markovic for questioning was issued on Friday, shortly after police found the remains of Stambolic, a Milosevic opponent who had been missing since August 2000.

After questioning two of Markovic’s associates, officials from her neo-communist Yugoslav Left party, police learned that “Markovic left the country on February 23 and is currently in the Russian Federation”, the statement said.

The authorities said they had informed her lawyers that an international warrant for her arrest would be issued unless she returns immediately.

Milosevic’s brother, Borislav, a former ambassador to Russia who lives in Moscow, refused to comment.

The discovery of Stambolic’s body, shot with two bullets and thrown into a lime pit in northern Serbia, came as police rounded up and questioned thousands of Milosevic-era war veterans, drug traffickers and various underworld figures who are suspects in Djindjic’s murder.

The investigation of Djindjic’s March 12 killing has also shed light on the unsolved Stambolic case. The interior ministry called Markovic a “person of utmost political influence” at the time of Stambolic’s murder, but did not elaborate on specific details of her alleged involvement. No formal charges have been brought.

The ministry said it had arrested the acting president of Milosevic’s Socialist Party, Bogoljub Bjelica.