Widow in Djindjic murder dragnet

BELGRADE - Serbian police hunting the killers of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic ransacked the home of once-feared warlord Arkan yesterday and arrested his young widow, suspected of having close links with key suspects.

The raid on the home of Svetlana "Ceca" Raznatovic, a popular folk music star, unearthed a huge quantity of firearms, ammunition and military gear, police said.

Items included night vision optical equipment, sniper telescopic sights and gun silencers, most of it stashed in an armoured bunker.

"Police are continuing to investigate her links to the leaders of the criminal gang involved in Djindjic's murder," they said.

Radio B92 said one of those was Milorad Lukovic, or Legija, who once was a member of Arkan's paramilitary unit, which fought in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Legija became a special police commander in the mid-1990s but left the force in 2001.

Four police vans sealed off Arkan's towering luxury house in the morning while heavily armed officers in military-style fatigues and balaclavas guarded the entrance through the day.

Arkan, whose real name was Zeljko Raznatovic, died in a hail of bullets in a Belgrade hotel in 2000.

Arkan's "Tigers" were the most feared of Serb paramilitary groups accused of ethnic cleansing.

The United Nations war crimes court in The Hague charged him in 1999 for atrocities during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia between 1991-95.

Police have arrested around 400 suspects since a sniper shot Djindjic dead in central Belgrade last Thursday, forcing central prison authorities in Belgrade to start transferring "ordinary" prisoners into provincial jails to make room for newcomers.

The news of the arrest is sure to shock many fans of the 30-year-old Ceca, a folk singer who often wore revealing attire and drew more than 70,000 people to a concert devoted to her late husband in a Belgrade soccer stadium last June.

Djindjic was a leading reformer who helped topple ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 and later enraged nationalists by shipping him to the UN war crimes tribunal.

He was under Western pressure to arrest and deliver other Serb war crimes suspects.

He had also vowed to clamp down on organised crime, allegedly linked to Milosevic's feared secret service.

The Government said a powerful criminal group known as the Zemun gang was behind the slaying and named Legija as one if its leaders. Last week, it introduced a state of emergency giving police extra powers to hold suspects and raid houses.

State television is repeatedly showing Legija's picture and those of other prime suspects, urging viewers to phone in information to the police.

The Democratic Party has nominated reformist Zoran Zivkovic for Premier. It must be approved by Parliament, where the ruling DOS alliance holds a narrow majority.

The assembly meets today.

- REUTERS