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| Europe |
| SERBIA: 'RED BERETS' LINKED TO PM DJINDIC'S ASSASSINATION |
| 2007-02-17 |
| (AKI) - Belgrade's district court on Friday sentenced nine people to over 99 years in jail for a staged traffic incident in which four of current foreign minister Vuk Draskovic's aides were killed in October 1999 when Draskovoic was a leading opposition figure. One of the main indictees, Milorad Ulemek Legija, a former commander of a special police unit called the 'red berets' is also on trial - together with others from the 'red berets' unit - for the March 2003 murder of Serbia's late prime minister, Zoran Djindjic. At the time of his death, Djindjic had reportedly been planning a crackdown on organised crime. Legija and the other main indictee, police official Nenad Ilic were sentenced to 15 years each - 25 years less than in a previous indictment - for the killing of Draskovic's aides. It was the third ruling in an eight-year long trial, whose two previous verdicts were overturned on appeal by the Supreme Court. Friday's court ruling is likely to provoke a renewed outpouring of rage from Draskovic, who has called the incident a "political murder," and has fingered Milosevic, who died last March in his prison cell at the UN's Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Hague just months before he was due to be sentenced. Draskovic was slightly injured in the faked accident when a truck driven by Ilic struck his motorcade on a road near Belgrade on 3 October 3, killing the four aides. Four other former members of LegijaÂ’s unit, Dusko Maricic, Branko Bercek, Nenad Bujosevic and Leonid Milivojevic were each given prison sentences of 14 years. Former head of the state security Radomir Markovic, and former customs director Mihalj Kertes got eight and three and a half years respectively, for aiding the perpetrators after the murder. Three other indictees got jail terms of less than one year, while former chief of Belgrade police Branko Djuric and security boss Milan Radonjic were acquitted. |
| Posted by:Fred |