Serbian leader assassinated

Two assassins gunned down the Serbian prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, in broad daylight in the centre of Belgrade yesterday, leaving Serbia leaderless and plunging the Balkans into a bleak and dangerous period of uncertainty.

The murder of the prime minister, only two years after he embarked on the formidable task of remodelling a country that became a pariah under Slobodan Milosevic, prompted his government to declare a state of emergency and three days of mourning for the 50-year-old German-educated philosopher.

Grieving Serbs, sunk in despair at the prospect of more upheaval and violence after more than a decade of disaster, turned the cabinet office into a shrine to Mr Djindjic last night, lighting candles and laying wreaths of daffodils at the spot where he was murdered.

While declarations of condolences and warnings about the persistent dangers of political violence and extremism in Serbia poured in from abroad, the military was mobilised and railway stations and airports were closed down in the hunt for the murderers.

Government officials said two men had been arrested after Mr Djindjic was slain by two large-calibre sniper bullets, one in the stomach and one in the back, as he was clambering out of his car to enter the cabinet office in the city centre at lunchtime yesterday.

Mr Djindjic, on crutches after a football injury, was hit twice and slumped against his armour-plated car before being taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was on his way to meet the Swedish foreign minister, Anna Lindh, when he was shot. By coincidence, it was Sweden's prime minister, Olaf Palme, who was the last European head of government to be assassinated, 17 years ago.

Despite the reported arrests, it was not clear whether the two detainees were the suspected assassins or whether police and military were hunting for other suspects.

The assassination stunned the Balkans, including Serbia's enemies in the vicious wars of the 1990s, and sent a wave of apprehension rippling through the western diplomatic community, which is preoccupied with the crisis over Iraq.

"An act of madness," said Stipe Mesic, the president of neighbouring Croatia, at war with Serbia in 1991-95. It could, he added, destabilise the region.

Lord Robertson, the Nato secretary general, and Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, echoed the view that the murder was an act of political extremism aimed at returning Serbia to the chaos and lawlessness of the rule of Mr Milosevic, in the dock in the Hague on charges of genocide.

Mr Djindjic became prime minister in early 2001 after leading the street revolution that deposed Mr Milosevic in October 2000. For most of his time in office he engaged in a ruthless power struggle with the Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, which crippled the governance of the country. His most notable act and biggest gamble was ordering the arrest of Mr Milosevic and handing him over to the tribunal in the Hague.

Mr Djindjic had powerful enemies among the Milosevic and the Kostunica camps, as well as among the Kosovan Albanians due to his calls for an ethnic partition of the province. But the main finger of suspicion last night pointed to powerful underworld chiefs who helped him overthrow Mr Milosevic but who now feared for their survival because of a crackdown on organised crime.

"I am afraid for the future of Serbia," said Slobodan Vucetic, the head of the country's supreme court.

Mr Kostunica called the murder "awful" and said it showed how thoroughly criminalised Serbia had become.

Only a fortnight ago, also in broad daylight, Mr Djindjic narrowly survived an attempt on his life in a car crash on a motorway outside Belgrade. A well-known Belgrade gangster who swerved a lorry into the path of the prime minister's vehicle was arrested then released by magistrates. Mr Djindjic himself indicated that mafia bosses had tried to have him killed.