Friday night in Belgrade -- Serbian Police are about to gatecrash a private party. They
are looking for drugs and guns -- the hard currency of Serbia's Mafia economy. The gatecrashers
are heavily armed -- and not welcome. It's all part of a tough new approach to organised
crime, one of the nastiest legacies of the Milosevic era.The police action is aimed at
Mafia bosses who grew rich on the battlefields of Croatia and Bosnia. In recent years they've
turned on each other.
Amid the murders and massacres -- other, darker crimes came to light. This badly decayed body
is all that remains of one of Slobodan Milosevic's oldest friends, Ivan Stambolic- a former Yugoslav
President. Mafia killers kept Stambolic waiting at the graveside while they dug a bigger hole
-- and then shot him in the head. In March this year, the government decided to act.
Every state has its Mafia; the problem here though is that the Mafia wanted their own
state.We could not allow Serbia to become a kind of European Columbia. The Gordian knot
had to be cut.
But the gangsters struck first. Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic - the man everyone hoped would
transform Serbia - was shot dead killing the hopes of millions of Serbs and of western
governments.Mourners flooded the streets of Belgrade to remember their fallen leader -- a
man who'd promised to beat the Mafia and send its leaders to the Hague on war crimes charges.
All the signs suggest that Djindjic's murder -- on Wednesday March 12th - was an inside
job.As the Prime Minister drove towards Parliament, three gunmen gained access to a nearby building.
Zoran Djindjic -- on crutches after a football injury was an easy target. His Head of Security
was off work; someone had turned off the CCTV cameras. As Djindjic stepped out of his car,
a bullet pierced his heart -- a symbol of how deeply the Mafia had penetrated Serbian
life.
The gangsters found out what Djindjic was going to do -- thanks to their spies in the
police. So they pulled the trigger first. It was only a matter of days before we were
going to act -- but they were quicker than us. They thought that by murdering the Prime
Minister they would provoke a coup d'etat and change the Government. And that way they
would save themselves from being arrested.
Instead, Zoran Djindjic's death provoked a showdown with organised crime... exposing
their multi-million pound drug deals, their vast private armouries and their links to
international crime. An incredible 10,000 people were arrested -- the biggest police
operation Serbia has ever seen. More than 3,000 now face charges - many of them members
of Serbia's most powerful Mafia gang, the Zemun clan. 45 people are accused of plotting
to kill the Prime Minister, including several secret service agents and a top army officer.
One man who's glad to see the gangsters behind bars is Miroslav Todorovic, a former judge
who tried several Mafia cases. He made the mistake of denouncing the Zemun Gang on national
television. The next day, he was abducted right outside Serbia's Supreme Court and taken
to the gang's headquarters in West Belgrade. The house has been demolished, but Todorovic
will never forget his encounter with the gang's leader, Dusan Spasojevic. This is the first
time he has spoken on television about his ordeal.
They made me open my mouth, as I did so he pushed the gun into my mouth and said 'Good,
good. With such a mouth and this weapon, you can't miss'.
Todorovic feared he would not leave the house alive. The gang leader took him down to this
empty swimming pool and, at gunpoint, ordered him to strip and enter the pool.
When a man experiences such humiliation so big and so horrible, many other things lose
their importance. I'm in my sixties and I was naked, at the mercy of a murderer. It's
devastating.
Todorovic was released. Police shot dead his torturers two months ago when they raided
a Zemun gang safe house, looking for Djindjic's killers. Serb authorities say the two men
were resisting arrest.
But like many things in Belgrade the attack on organised crime isn't quite what it seems.
One of the leading suspects has mysteriously gone missing and important evidence of the
Mafia's links with high level politicians and police officers has been destroyed. The
most damning claim though is that the government here has simply destroyed one Mafia network
with the help of another rival gang.
And that's because the Mafia have such a grip on Serb society, from football to pop music.
One of Serbia's most popular singers -- Ceca is the widow of the indicted war criminal
Arkan. Her music videos reflect the gangster culture of guns and revenge killings. Ceca
herself has not been spared, accused of tax fraud and possessing weapons.
Football too is caught in the Mafia's net. Six league presidents have been murdered.
Ceca is President of FC Obilic, one of Serbia's leading teams. The club's now under investigation
for alleged money laundering. Obilic's Acting President insists the Club and Ceca are innocent
-- the target of rival interests who want to take over their team.
She started a hunger strike because she feels that there's a hidden agenda behind her arrest.
We've begged her to take food. She's refused. She says and I quote: " I think they are going
to send me to the Hague for the mistakes my husband Arkan made. If that's their aim, they'd
better get a move on."
Few people can escape the long shadow of Belgrade's gangs -- even Serbia's most popular politician.Former
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has been on the backfoot since two of his advisers
were accused of meeting Djindjic's killer's days before his murder. Kostunica says the
government's pursuing a political vendetta against his advisers.
I consider both of them to be political prisoners. They had nothing to do with the assassination
of Prime Minister Djindjic. The government has given already some signs, some proofs
that it has intentions to use the state of emergency and the assassination of Prime Minister
Djindjic in order to get rid of its political rivals.
Such questions will now be decided by Serbia's prosecutors and judges, here discussing the
legal fight against organised crime. It'll be a massive task not least because dozens
of top judges and prosecutors have been removed during the state of emergency. Serbia's justice
minister is under pressure to get results. So he's taken a leaf out of the Italian law
book.
We are following the practises of different countries. First of all, Italy, which is the
leading country in the fight against organised crime. They've got the special police, the
special prosecutor, the special courts. And in a way we have incorporated the experience
of the Italian judiciary into our own.
A former military court is being prepared for the Mafia trials -- complete with bullet
proof glass cages for the accused.Human rights campaigners say the trials -- due to start
in September -- will only succeed if witnesses are properly protected- and that will cost
money.
It will have problems, enormous problems because they will have problems with witnesses, they
will have problems with judges, with lawyers. Because all these professions suffer the problems
that we have all over. And of course witnesses will have to be protected and this is going
to be a big problem for all the country where safety is not really so highly ranking.
On the surface, Belgrade seems a lot more prosperous now than in the war years.There
are even hints that the former pariah state could join the EU and NATO. But before all
that can happen, Serbia needs more outside help to tackle the Mafia's main sources of
income -- smuggling, extortion and human trafficking.
The mobsters are acting like real globalisers. They don't know any boundaries. And they are
united all over the planet. And that's why we have to fight them globally, united and co-operating.
I'm asking the British government and other European nations, including the
United States and other developed countries to help our police, customs and judiciary
to become a firm and safe barrier against organised crime.
Removing the Milosevic regime then hasn't solved all of Serbia's problems. In some ways,
it's made them worse. Unless the outside world offers more cash aid, the crime and corruption
which has engulfed Belgrade could soon become this country's biggest export.