Eight former members of the now defunct Special Operations Unit (JSO) of the Serbian Interior Ministry have been charged with organising an armed rebellion in November 2001, Serbian organised crime prosecutor Miljko Radisavljevic announced on Friday.
Among the accused are JSO commander Milorad Ulemek, who is serving a 40-year prison term for organising the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, and his deputy Zvezdan Jovanovic, who has also been sentenced to 40 years as the direct perpetrator of the assassination.
The indictment was issued three days before March 12, the ninth anniversary of the assassination. The JSO rebellion is seen as a prelude to the assassination and resolution of this case may shed light on the political background to the assassination.
The JSO rebelled in November 2001 when its personnel refused obedience to the State Security Service and blocked a motorway in Belgrade, demanding the adoption of a bill on cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal and dismissal of the then Minister of the Interior, Dusan Mihajlovic. Prime Minister Djindjic refused to sack Mihajlovic.
Prosecutor Radisavljevic said that it could not be concluded from the available evidence that at the time of the rebellion there had existed a plan for the subsequent assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic, which was carried out on March 12, 2003. He said that the two events were connected only in that Ulemek, Jovanovic and Dusan Spasojevic, the then boss of an infamous criminal gang known as the Zemun Clan, played leading roles in them.
