July 10 (SeeNews) - The Serbian Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed a 40-year sentence on the paramilitary commander of former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic for the August 2000 killing of former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic.
Milorad Ulemek-Legija, head of Milosevic's elite paramilitary unit, the Red Berets, was earlier sentenced by Serbia's Special Court for Organised Crime for the killing of Stambolic and for the attempted murder of the then opposition leader Vuk Draskovic in the Montenegrin resort of Budva, also in 2000.
The Supreme Court also ruled that the late Milosevic ordered the killings of his political foes Stambolic and Draskovic, court spokeswoman Vesna Dabic told SeeNews without elaborating.
"The judgment will be legally binding when proceedings are completed. That means it needs to be written first and then to pass the court procedures", Dabic said. After that, details of the Supreme Court ruling will be made public, she added.
Legija was also convicted and sentenced for the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic on March 12, 2003. The last part of his name, "Legija", meaning "'legion" in Serbian, is a nickname he received after serving with the French Foreign Legion in the 1980s and with the "Tiger" unit of the notorious paramilitary chief Arkan in the Balkan wars.
Stambolic served as President of Serbia in the communist era Yugoslav Federation until he was ousted by Milosevic in 1987. He was abducted in August 2000 while jogging and shot in the head. His body, thrown into a lime pit in the Fruska Gora hills in the north of Serbia, was found in 2003.
Milosevic, who died behind bars at the Hague tribunal in March 2006, was never convicted by any court for involvement in the killing of Stambolic and attempted murder of Draskovic while alive.