Rome/Belgrade - Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian prime minister gunned down last week, predicted his assassination last month, according to the chief prosecutor at the United Nations war crimes court in The Hague.
"I was in Belgrade a month ago, on February 17. He gave me a full run-down of his reform programmes.
"It was then suddenly that he told me: 'They'll kill me'," prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in an interview with the Italian daily La Republica on Tuesday.
"He was explaining to me that after beginning to reform the economy he intended to tackle the police and the army. It was a very delicate process and very dangerous, and the prime minister knew that perfectly well," she said.
"He knew that the fight against organised crime went hand-in-hand with the arrest of war criminals. He knew what the connections were between the old paramilitary apparatus and the mafia."
One of the chief suspects in Djindjic's murder is Milorad Lukovic, a former head of a paramilitary police unit known as the "red berets", which operated under former president Slobodan Milosevic.
Lukovic is also suspected of being a key figure in an organised crime gang currently operating in Belgrade.
Milosevic is currently on trial for war crimes before the UN tribunal.
Meanwhile, newly elected Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic, a close ally of the slain leader, told parliament on Tuesday that the government would push on with Western-backed reforms and pledged a drive to crush organised crime.
The reformist said the operation launched after Djindjic was killed by a sniper in Belgrade on March 12 was showing results, stating that police have detained more than 750 people in a sweep through the underworld.
The government, which declared a state of emergency giving police extra powers to hold suspects and raid houses, said gangster bosses linked to Milosevic-era state security officials ordered the assassination in a bid to create chaos in Serbia.
Djindjic played a key role in toppling Milosevic in 2000, and his murder triggered fears of renewed instability in impoverished Serbia.
But Zivkovic said the government would remain "on
the same path, with the same tasks and unchanged goals". - Sapa-AFP and Reuters