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an hour agoSuspected assassins of former Serbian president to be retriald
Periskopi(8 years ago)
(8 years ago)A court in Belgrade will consider the possibility of retrialing men convicted of the 1980s Serbian President Ivan Stambolic and of trying to kill former opposition Freedom Vuk Draskovic. A retrial motion filed by lawyers for Milorad Ulemek and Branko Bercek, who were convicted of [...]
A court in Belgrade will consider the possibility of retrialing men convicted of the 1980s Serbian President Ivan Stambolic and of trying to kill former opposition Freedom Vuk Draskovic.
A motion of retrial submitted by lawyers for Milorad Ulemek and Branko Bercek, who were convicted of killing Ivan Stambolic and attempted murder of Vuk Draskovic in 2007 and 2008, should be reviewed due to allegations of new evidence, the Court of Appeals decided in Belgrade on Thursday.
Ulemek and Bercek, senior officers from the Serbian Interior Ministry's Special Antiterrorism Unit, were given maximum sentences of 40 years in prison.
Their defense claims that Bercek, who was convicted as direct author in the attempt to kill Draskovic, has different blood groups than the one found on the crime scene.
Belgrade's Special Court initially rejected the case's defence request for retrial, calling it “complete”.
But the Court of Appeals announced Thursday that it has overturned that decision, saying defence must give it time to change its demand.
Ulemek, also known as Legija, was sentenced to another 40 years in prison for organising the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
Former Serbian President Stambolic was Milosevic's close ally, but later became a potential political rival. He disappeared in August 2000 and was taught after Milosevic's fall that he was killed.
Draskovic, the leader of the Serbian Movement for Renewment, was one of the politicians involved in protests against Milosevic in the 1990s.
Vuk Cvilic, a journalist specialising in law enforcement and crime, told BIRN that he hopes the new court ruling has been taken for “proceduralally” and that “nobody will play with the” verdict.
This decision most worries members of the Milosevic regime, because it exposed its entire criminal nature”, Cvijic said.
He added that the ruling determined that Milosevic, who collapsed through mass protests in 2000, ordered political killings committed by the secret service, assisted by the army and organised criminal gangs. / B IRN Belgrade
