Alleged Djindjic assassin was Red Beret

BELGRADE - Serbian police have arrested the suspected assassin of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

The Government believes the man who pulled the trigger was Zvezdan Jovanovic, an assistant commander of the Special Operations unit, also known as the Red Berets.

The unit has ties to organised crime and Slobodan Milosevic, the former President of Yugoslavia, now on trial in the Hague for war crimes.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic said Jovanovic was arrested with an accomplice, Sasa Pejakovic, also a Red Beret.

The weapon used to gun down Djindjic on March 12 as he got out of his armoured car in front of a government building has been recovered. Zivkovic said the Heckler and Koch sniper rifle had been found buried in a new part of Belgrade.

Dusan Maricic, the commander of the Special Operations Unit, has been relieved of his duties and is also under arrest because of his links to the Zemun Clan, an organised crime ring.

Serbian police blamed the Zemun Clan for the assassination of Djindjic. One of its leaders, Milorad Lukovic ("Legija"), is a former commander of Red Berets. Lukovic and a dozen of his clan's leaders are still at large.

Lukovic was also a member of the notorious Tigers paramilitary units of the late Zeljko Raznatovic, also known as Arkan, which operated in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990s.

In 1996 he joined the Red Berets, created by Serbian secret police, but left shortly after Milosevic fell from power in 2000.

The manhunt after the killing of Djindjic led to the arrest of more than 3000 people. More than 1000 are still in custody.

- INDEPENDENT