Zemun Clan members Milos Simovic and Sretko Kalinic were on Monday again sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment each for involvement in the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
Simovic and Kalinic may appeal the latest verdict and will remain in prison until a decision by the Appeals Court.
A panel of judges decided the conviction of 2007 should remain in force, as the witnesses questioned during the retrial clearly pointed to what the two accused were doing before and on the day of the assassination.
Djindjic was killed in front of the Serbian government building on 12 March 2003. He was the first Serbian prime minister after the fall of the Slobodan Milosevic regime, launching the democratisation of Serbian society and radical economic and social reforms.
Djindjic was one of the founders of the Democratic Party, a veteran and one of the most prominent leaders of the Serbian opposition which defeated the Milosevic regime at a September 2000 election.
Milorad Ulemek, a commander of the former Interior Ministry Special Operations Unit, was convicted in May 2007 to 40 years' imprisonment for organising Djindjic's assassination. His deputy Zvezdan Jovanovic was convicted to the same sentence as the perpetrator of the murder.
The Serbian Supreme Court upheld the Ulemek and Jovanovic sentences on 29 December 2008 and again on 24 November 2009.
In December 2008, the Supreme Court also upheld the 35-year prison sentences given to Aleksandar Simovic, Ninoslav Kostantinovic and Vladimir Milisavljevic, as well as the 30-year prison sentences against Milos Simovic, Milan Jurisic and Branislav Bezarevic.
Kalinic's sentence was eventually reduced from 35 to 30 years, Dusan Krsmanovic's from 30 to 20, and Zeljko Tojaga's from 30 to 15 years' imprisonment.
The retrial of Simovic and Kalinic, who were arrested in mid-2010, began after they exercised their right to a retrial, given they were were initially tried in absentia.
