PREVIEW-Djindjic verdict will leave unanswered questions
By Ellie Tzortzi
BELGRADE, May 22 (Reuters) - The sniper's bullet that killed Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic on March 12, 2003 stopped Serbia in its tracks as it struggled to emerge from the shadow of nationalist autocrat Slobodan Milosevic.
The trial of Djindjic's alleged killers concludes on Wednesday, but the verdict is unlikely to unite a nation still divided over his legacy.
After three and a half years, the murder of two key men among the 150 witnesses, and the resignation of a judge due to threats, there in no clear explanation for his killing.
"The murder of Zoran Djindjic was a political murder, but those who ordered this crime have not been revealed," said Bozo Prelevic, lawyer for a bodyguard wounded in the shooting. "The accused were only tools in other hands, purely executioners."
The main suspects among 12 accused are Milorad "Legija" Ulemek, commander of the Red Berets unit of Serbia's secret police, and his deputy Zvezdan Jovanovic, the alleged sniper. Five of the 12 are on the run.
Most were members of the Zemun mafia gang, and many fought as paramilitaries in the Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo wars backed by Milosevic. Ulemek is already convicted of a political murder and an assassination attempt at Milosevic's bidding.
The indictment says the accused killed Djindjic to bring hardliners back to power, to avoid being sent to the Hague war crimes tribunal and because they feared a crackdown on lucrative organised crime.
In a closing statement last month, Djindjic family lawyer Srdja Popovic said the trial proved their guilt, but they were mere puppets, not the ones who really pulled the strings.
"I hope to make another closing statement," he said, "in the trial of those who organised and ordered Djindjic's murder."
The main suspects in the trial could each draw a maximum 40 year sentence, with shorter terms for the others.
Political reaction to the verdict could set off ripples in this fragile democracy, ruled by an uneasy, week-old coalition of the Democratic Party, co-founded by Djindjic, and current Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia.
MARTYRDOM
Pro-Western reformist Djindjic took power after Milosevic was ousted in October 2000. A youthful man with salt-and-pepper hair and a winning smile, he was vilified by nationalists as a traitor in 2001 for extraditing Milosevic to The Hague.
Serbia's strong ultranationalist Radical Party still refers to him contemptuously as 'the mafia prime minister'.
But Djindjic deflected charges of arrogance with his pursuit of reform, winning respect and ending up as a martyr to pro-European Serbs.
Former aide Cedomir Jovanovic, now leader of his own party and a vocal critic of prime minister Kostunica for flirting with hardliners and taking Serbia off Djindjic's pro-Western path, reveres the late premier.
"He didn't want to rule Serbia, he wanted to change it", Jovanovic said. But he was killed by "the conservative, closed-up Serbia of the past".
The charge says the lone gunman fired two rifle bullets as Djindjic was going into his office. But conflicting testimonies spawned conspiracy theories, including a 'second gunman'.
Ulemek's lawyer, Slobodan Milivojevic, drew comparisons with the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Nenad Vukasovic, lawyer for alleged gunman Jovanovic, said Djindjic was killed for disobedience, by "the same powerful Western interests that brought him to power".
