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Police smash Milosevic ally's home
BELGRADE, Serbia -- Anti-terrorist police moved Friday to demolish the headquarters of an underworld group linked to Slobodan Milosevic, as authorities accused allies of the former president of assassinating Serbia's prime minister. Zoran Djindjic, who was gunned down in Belgrade on Wednesday, played a key role in the overthrow of Milosevic, now on trial at the Hague for crimes against humanity and genocide for alleged actions during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Two bulldozers crushed concrete walls and smashed windows after masked policemen with bullet proof vests and machine guns raided a shopping mall and about a dozen edifices belonging to the shadowy gangland Zemun Clan, named after a Belgrade suburb. The compound belongs to alleged crime boss Dusan Spasojevic, who the government says has links to former Yugoslav President Milosevic. It includes Spasojevic's private home with a swimming pool. There was no sign that anyone was in the complex, and Reuters said the action seemed designed to show the authorities' determination to hunt down those responsible for the assassination. Police have arrested 56 suspects, most of them low-ranking members of the Zemun criminal syndicate, named after the Belgrade suburb where Spasojevic was based. But authorities said the snipers who killed the reformist, pro-Western politician Wednesday remain at large. The 50-year-old premier put himself out on a limb to meet Western demands for aid by handing over other war criminals to the Hague and fighting organized crime. His stance also drew opposition from many Serbian nationalists and created many enemies. Serb police detained the owner of a small weekly publication that ran a headline about the planned assassination of Djindjic the day before he was gunned down, one of its journalists said Friday. Journalist Zika Rakonjac said police arrested Gradisa Katic, editor-in-chief of the tabloid Identitet weekly, at around noon Thursday. In the issue that hit news stands Tuesday it said in a front-page headline -- referring to Serb suspects held at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague -- "Djindjic the target of freelance shooter. Serbs from The Hague ordered assassination." Djindjic was shot the next day. In a statement Friday, the government said investigations show that "a criminal clan, as well as some other groups, mainly police-security structures from Milosevic's times ... were involved in organizing and carrying out" the assassination.
Judge Theodor Meron, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said Djindjic's "cooperation with the tribunal brought international justice closer to a region which saw terrible atrocities. His death is a heavy blow to individual accountability for violations of International Humanitarian Law and to the rule of law." The government has declared a state of emergency, and police have fanned out across Belgrade, stopping buses and cars, checking for suspects. "The assassination," the government said, "represents an attempt to halt the government's fight against organized crime and for members of the crime syndicate to avoid arrest." Meanwhile, authorities said the state funeral of Djindjic will take place Saturday. Citizens and foreign dignitaries will pay their final respects at Saint Sava's Cathedral before he is buried with full military honors, the government said. A requiem service will take place in the presence of Serbian Orthodox Church dignitaries. A makeshift memorial has been erected near the site of the shooting, outside the Serbian government building where snipers using high-velocity firearms struck the prime minister early Wednesday afternoon. Djindjic was hit twice and died of his wounds at a nearby hospital. "Citizens are still gathering," the government said, "lighting candles and laying flowers to pay their final respects." Serbia, with a population of 10.5 million, is one of two republics in the nation of Serbia and Montenegro, formed this year from the former Yugoslavia. They had been the only two republics remaining in Yugoslavia after the six-member socialist federation collapsed in the 1990s. -- CNN Correspondent Matthew Chance contributed to this report. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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