Zoran Djindjic - the fighter for the truth

Zoran Djindjic is a Serbian politician and writer who was born on August 1, 1952 in the Yugoslav town of Bosanski-Shamac and was killed on March 12, 2003 in Belgrade. From 2001 to 2003, Djindjic was Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as Chairman of the Democratic Party. He was married, his widow is Ruzica Djindjic, they have two children: the son of Luke and the daughter of Jovan.

Years of study

Zoran Djindjic was born in 1952 in the family of an officer in the city of Bosanski-Shamac, located on the territory of modern Bosnia. He began his political career while still a student at the Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade University. Djindjic was sentenced to several months of imprisonment for organizing an opposition group along with other students from Croatia and Slovenia.

After his release from prison, he, with the assistance of the former German Chancellor Willy Brandt, moved to Germany, where he continued his studies in Frankfurt am Main and Heidelberg. In 1979, after moving to the University of Constanta, he completed his Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy.

Return to Yugoslavia

In 1989, Zoran Djindjic returned to Yugoslavia, began working as a teacher at the University of Novi Sad and, together with other dissidents, founded the Democratic Party. In 1990, he became chairman of the party and in the same year was elected to the parliament of Serbia.

After the Serbian government annulled the results of local elections in November 1996, mass protests rushed through the country, after which the opposition's victory was recognized. Djindjic is known as the first non-communist party to the mayor of Belgrade since the Second World War. After conflicts with his allies because of the nationalist Vuk Draskovic in late September 1997, he was forced to leave the post of the Belgrade mayor.

During the Yugoslav presidential and parliamentary elections in September 2000, he worked as the head of the electoral campaign of the alliance of the democratic opposition of Serbia, consisting of 18 parties. After the overthrow of the Milosevic regime, this union won an unconditional victory in the elections to the Serbian parliament, which took place in December 2000.

Prime Minister of Serbia

In January 2001, Zoran Djindjic was elected Prime Minister of the Union of Countries (Serbia and Montenegro). As a pro-Western politician, he constantly clashed with both representatives of the old communist nomenklatura and with the nationalists with whom he was forced to work together. Zoran Djindjic has made even more enemies because he fought corruption and organized crime in Serbia, also because of the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague Tribunal for war criminals in 2002 and because of the promise to send Ratko Mladic, who he Gave Carla Del Ponte.

Murder

On March 12, 2003 Zoran Djindjic was killed in Belgrade by sniper shots in the stomach and back. They fired from the window of a building about 180 meters away. Also, Djindjic's bodyguard was seriously wounded. When the prime minister was brought to the hospital, the pulse was no longer palpable. After his death, a state of emergency was declared to give the executive power more opportunities to find the perpetrators. It was suspected that the murder was ordered by Milosevic's supporters and the so-called Zemun Mafia clan. A total of 7,000 people were arrested, of whom 2,000 remained in detention for a long time.

It was found that Djindjic Zoran, whose murder, in all probability, is connected with his political activities, was shot by Zvezdan Jovanovic, a lieutenant colonel of the Serbian army and deputy commander of the special detachment "Red Berets". A little later, a murder weapon was found, the Heckler & Koch G3 rifle; It was this material evidence that allowed the court to issue a guilty verdict.

Trial

At the end of 2003, the Belgrade court began the trial against 13 suspects. On May 2, 2004, the alleged backstage leader of the murder, Milorad Ulemek, commander of the Red Berets, also appeared in court. He was detained near his own house, located in a suburb of Belgrade. On June 3, 2006, a key witness in the case was found dead in Belgrade. Serbian media reported that in his testimony, which in 2004 were not available to the public, he spoke about the involvement in the crime of Marco Milosevic, the son of the former president.

On May 22, 2007, Ulemek and Jovanovic were sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment for "crimes against the constitutional order". According to the court, Ulemek played the role of coordinator, while Yovanovitch, who in the course of the trial refused this earlier recognition, was the direct executor. Ten other defendants, five of whom had only indirect relation to the murder, were sentenced to between 8 and 35 years. Who is the customer of the crime, it was not possible to find out.

After the appeal to the Supreme Court of Serbia on December 29, 2008, the sentences for the three accomplices were relaxed, but the verdicts to the main culprits were confirmed in full, that is, 40 years of imprisonment for both Milorad Ulemek (coordinator) and Zvezdan Jovanovic (shooter) . Ulemek was a member of the detachment of the Tigers, who, under the leadership of the scandalously known police chief of Arkan, committed numerous crimes during the civil war in Yugoslavia. Later he directed the police special forces "Red Berets", which was created under the direct control of President Slobodan Milosevic.

Other participants in the crime

Two years later, in June 2010, Sretko Kalinich and Milosz Simovitch, also implicated in this murder, were caught.

In February 2011, in Valencia, Spain, Vladimir Milisavlievich was arrested, driving a car in which the shooter fled the scene of the crime. At the time of his arrest, he was already sentenced in absentia to 35 years imprisonment.

The grave of Zoran Djindjic is located in the central cemetery of Belgrade. Ten years after the murder, the university and city authorities of the city of Konstanz opened a memorial plaque in honor of Djindjic.