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| Twelve guilty of Djindjic murder | |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| A Serbian court has found 12 men guilty of the 2003 assassination of the pro-Western Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in Belgrade. | |
| All the defendants, who include members of the secret police and alleged mafia kingpins, had denied the charges. | All the defendants, who include members of the secret police and alleged mafia kingpins, had denied the charges. |
| Two former policemen - Milorad "Legija" Ulemek and Zvezdan Jovanovic - received 40-year jail terms. | |
| The prosecution argued Djindjic was killed to block his reforms, including the extradition of war crimes suspects. | |
| The trial was the first at Belgrade's Special Court for Organised Crime. | The trial was the first at Belgrade's Special Court for Organised Crime. |
| Eyewitnesses murdered | |
| Ulemek, an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire, and Jovanovic were said to be the ringleaders of the plot. They had been members of the Red Berets police unit. | |
| Some of the other 10 found guilty had also served as paramilitaries in the Bosnian, Croatian and Kosovan conflicts. | |
| "It was all prepared by Ulemek. Jovanovic fired the shots," Judge Nata Mesarevic was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters. | |
| Analysis: Marathon trial | |
| Dubbed the "Trial of the Century", the case was beset by problems. | |
| One protected witness and another eyewitness were murdered, while one judge resigned and another received death threats. | |
| The former prime minister was getting out of his official car outside government buildings in Belgrade when he was fatally shot by a sniper on 12 March 2003. |