Accused Đinđić killer delivers closing argument

Accused Đinđić killer delivers closing argument

Presiding Judge Nata Mesarević asked the defendant whether his closing argument was in fact a denial of the prosecution claim he took part in the assassination, to which Jovanović answered that he did not kill Đinđić or wound his bodyguard Milan Veruović.

Jovanović said he signed the confession he made after his arrest out of fear for his family’s safety.

“I agreed to sign whatever they asked me to just as long as they did not bother my family. I did not say anything, I was just supposed to confirm, ‘is that so?’, ‘that is so’,” Jovanović told the court.

Jovanović then told the judges he was “framed” with the evidence linking him with Đinđić’s murder.

“How is it possible that only two of my fingerprints, from the index finger of one hand, were found at the site where I allegedly smoked cigarettes? I will not talk about this any further, that is just one of the things police, the prosecution and above all Mile Novaković and Jovan Prijić have framed me with,” Jovanović said.

He added he was never a member of a sniper team during his service in the Serbian MUP’s Special Operations Unit (JSO), as well as that he never shot a person from a sniper rifle.

Jovanović said the testimonies submitted by interior minister in the Đinđić government  Dušan Mihajlović, former State Security (DB) chief Goran Petrović and former official of Đinđić’s Democratic Party (DS) Čedomir Jovanović were false.

“The former interior minister tried to wash his hands off the responsibility in his statement. He ordered the JSO to provide security for Miroslav Mišković and Dušan Spasojević, and then tried to hide the state’s links with the underworld before the court,” Jovanović said.

Mišković, one of Serbia’s richest men and owner of one of the country’s largest companies, Delta Holding, was kidnapped briefly in 2001, by the Zemun gang led by Spasojević, killed in a showdown with police in the wake of Đinđić’s murder.

Jovanović also branded as false Petrović’s and Jovanović’s testimonies about JSO’s 2001 armed protest, and denied media reports he threatened Jovanović with a knife at the unit’s home base in Kula, Vojvodina.

“Does anyone think I would need a knife to handle Jovanović? Perhaps just hygienic gloves,” the second accused said.

Jovanović went on to criticize the media, which “branded him a prime minister killer” only a day after he was arrested.

The closing argument of former JSO officer Zvezdan Jovanović, standing accused of having killed Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić on March 12, 2003, continues today.