Security Chiefs Charged Over Djindjic Murder

The Serbian authorities charged two aides to the former Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica in connection with the assassination of the Serbian prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, yesterday.

The interior ministry announced that both men, who were senior security advisers to Mr Kostunica, were implicated in the murder because they promised that the Serbian armed forces would not interfere in a coup d'etat that was to follow the Djindjic murder.

The interior minister, Dusan Mihailovic, said the two - Aco Tomic, until recently the chief of Serbian military intelligence, and Rade Bulatovic, Mr Kostunica's national security adviser - were among 45 suspects charged with involvement in the assassination last month.

Those charged also included Vojislav Seselj, the extremist nationalist leader who is currently in custody at the war crimes tribunal in the Hague after being indicted for war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia. Last year Mr Seselj took more than a quarter of the vote in a failed bid to become Serbian president.

Mr Mihailovic said that of the 45 people being charged, 15 were directly involved in the March 12 assassination. The main suspect, Milorad Lukovic, a gangland boss who used to command the Red Berets paramilitary police unit, is still at large as well as 10 other suspects.

Mr Kostunica, an anti-western nationalist who led the revolt against Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000, has been arguing for weeks that the Serbian government has been exploiting a state of emergency to launch a witchhunt against opponents.

Naming Mr Tomic and Mr Bulatovic as being complicit in the assassination plot puts the Kostunica camp in the firing line.

Djindjic and Mr Kostunica led the anti-Milosevic revolution, but then became rivals for power.

Earlier this week Nenad Canak, a prominent Serbian leader, blamed the Djindjic murder on a nationalist conspiracy backed by the Kostunica camp aimed at removing the Djindjic government and restoring an anti-western regime that would cut off all cooperation with the war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

Mr Canak said: "The coup probably would have succeeded if Kostunica had still been in control of the military." Mr Kostunica lost his post earlier this year when Yugoslavia ceased to exist. He failed twice last year in running for the Serbianpresidency.

Mr Mihailovic levelled similar allegations yesterday, stating that the aim of the plotters was to "stop the Hague".

Before volunteering to go to the Hague in February Mr Seselj warned of a turbulent spring in Serbia. According to Nebojsa Covic, the deputy prime minister, he issued orders for the "physical elimination" of Djindjic at a lunch in Belgrade in February before going to the Netherlands.

The state of emergency imposed after the Djindjic killing was lifted last week after more than ten thousand people were arrested. Almost half remain in custody. Hundreds are to be tried as a result of the six-week crackdown on organised crime and on political and security service skulduggery.

Mr Mihailovic said the investigation had uncovered no evidence of Mr Milosevic, in the dock on genocide charges in the Hague, being involved in the plot.

But for the second time in a week, Mr Mihailovic announced charges against Mr Milosevic in connection with other political murders.

Mr Milosevic was charged last week in connection with the murder of his former mentor and Serbian president, Ivan Stambolic. Yesterday he was also charged in connection with the attempted murder, three years ago, of the opposition leader, Vuk Draskovic.

In the Djindjic case, the two Kostunica aides are charged with "associating to commit hostile activities".