Prosecutor: JSO rebellion to be investigated

Prosecutor: JSO rebellion to be investigated

He said the Special Prosecutor’s office did not disregard operative data pertaining to the mutiny, adding, however, that “even law students know indictments cannot be issued without prior investigation, which in this case has not yet been conducted”.

“It is necessary to investigate all the events that led up to the prime minister’s assassination, who did what in his surroundings, and the mistakes because of which nothing was done to prevent the murder. That is my duty as a prosecutor,” Radovanović told the daily.

Radovanović described Đinđić family lawyer Srđa Popović’s statement that he had “promised to issue indictments in the case and now wants a way out”, as “one-sided”.

“It is unfathomable that someone would attempt to interpret these things in such a way,” Radovanović said, adding that over a year ago he had said “there was information that the highest institutions knew what was happening and what was about to happen right before the prime minister’s murder”.

The JSO, also known as the Red Berets or simply the Unit, was Serbia’s State Security (DB) formation operating in the former Yugoslavia wars during the 1990’s.

In the fall of 2001, they staged a blockade of the Belgrade-Novi Sad highway using service vehicles, armed and in full combat uniforms, demanding the resignation of the Đinđić cabinet minister of the interior Dušan Mihajlović.

A statement by then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) president and present Serbian prime minister Vojislav Koštunica that “teachers and doctors protest in their clothes, while soldiers protest in uniforms,” was seen by some media and politicians as apologetic of the unprecedented event.

The JSO was disbanded on March 22, 2003, ten days after the Đinđić assassination, with its former commander Milorad Ulemek a.k.a. Legija and deputy commander Zvezdan Jovanović charged with planning and executing the murder.

Belgrade’s Organized Crime Court found Ulemek and Jovanović guilty last week, sentencing them to maximum 40-year prison terms.