Grave of missing Serb president discovered

POLICE have found the grave of a missing former Serbian president they believe was killed by an elite police unit also suspected in the slaying of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, authorities said yesterday.

The announcement came a day after two main suspects in Djindjic's assassination died in a shoot-out with police. Investigators believe Dusan Spasojevic, 35, and Mile Lukovic, 34, were leaders of the Zemun Clan, a crime gang with ties to former President Slobodan Milosevic that allegedly arranged the killing along with the police unit.

The gang members had been hiding for days in the Belgrade suburb of Barajevo, authorities said. As officers tried to arrest them on Thursday night, they "opened automatic fire, forcing the officers to respond", police said in a statement yesterday.

The government did not specify what role the two allegedly played in the assassination. A police official speaking on condition of anonymity said they organised and financed the plot.

On Friday, Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said police had found the body of Ivan Stambolic, Serbia's president in the late 1980s, in a lime-covered grave on a mountain in northern Serbia.

Stambolic, a bitter foe of Milosevic, had been missing since August 2000, when he was abducted by unknown assailants while jogging in a Belgrade park.

It was believed Milosevic ordered him killed because of fears he might have run against him in Yugoslav presidential elections in October that year. Milosevic eventually lost that vote to Vojislav Kostunica, and was toppled in a popular revolt after refusing to concede defeat.

Mihajlovic blamed four members of a special police unit loyal to Milosevic for the murder and said they had been arrested. The interior minister said an investigation has shown Stambolic's murder was political.

Police planned to interrogate Milosevic who is on trial at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands and his influential wife Mirjana Markovic in connection with the Stambolic's grave, he added.

Stambolic's son Veljko said: "I will finally be able to bury my father's body and light a candle at his grave."

The police unit, known as Special Operations Unit, was disbanded on Wednesday after several of its members were arrested on charges they were linked to Djindjic's assassination.

Authorities did not elaborate yesterday on the specific role Spasojevic and Lukovic played in Djindjic's assassination, but a ranking police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were "directly involved in the plot to kill Djindjic".

Meanwhile, Milica Gajic-Milosevic, the wife of Marko Milosevic who is former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's son, has been arrested in the central Serbian town of Pozarevac and transferred to Belgrade. Marko's whereabouts has been unknown since his father was toppled in a popular uprising in October 2000. It was not immediately known why Gajic-Milosevic had been arrested.