| Milorad "Legija" Ulemek | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 15, 1965 Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia |
| Nationality | Serbian |
| Occupation | Former Commander of Red Berets |
Milorad "Legija" Ulemek (Serbian: Милорад "Легија" Улемек), also known as Milorad Luković (Милорад Луковић) (born on March 15, 1965[1] in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia) is a former commander of the Serbian secret police special unit, the Red Berets (JSO), convicted of the assassinations of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic and organiser of the attempted murder of the Serbian opposition leader Vuk Draskovic.[2]
He was a member of the notorious Zemun clan, one of the Serbian mafia groups based in Belgrade.
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Milorad was born on March 15, 1965, in Belgrade, to a family of origins in the village of Pecka, Topusko, in the region of Kordun in Croatia. His father Milan was a sub-Officer in the Yugoslav Army, while his mother Natalija was a homewife.
Milorad, grew up in New Belgrade, near Hotel Jugoslavija.[3] He was problematic in his early teens. He finished an auto mechanic program and medicine school in Belgrade.
He became friends with Kristijan Golubović in 1984, and together they made their first "big" robbery. He was given the nickname "Cema" from "cement".[3]
After a botched robbery in 1985, he left for France and on April 10, 1986, he joined the French Foreign Legion where he stayed for 6 years, serving in: Chad, Libya, Beirut, French Guyana and Iraq. He was given the nom de guerre "Legionnaire" (Legija) because of his military career in the Legion.
He left the French Legion with the Yugoslav Wars in 1992, and joined the Serb Volunteer Guard under Arkan (Arkan's tigers), becoming one of Arkan's closest friend and commander of the unit. He commanded the "Super Tigrovi" (Super Tigers) special unit which operated in eastern Slavonia.
The unit was disbanded in April 1996, and all members were ordered to join the Yugoslav Army, however, in the same year the JSO (Special Operations Unit) was formed, merging the former Serb Guard with the wartime "Red Berets" (The JSO acquired the nickname from the merger), Jovica Stanišić,[3] head of the State Security Service asked Legija to join the unit. In 1999 he became the leader of the "Red Berets",[4] and became the official commander of "JSO SDB Serbia" in April 2001.
Ivan Stambolic, former President of Serbia, was kidnapped in August 2000 while out jogging, executed and his body concealed in woodlands. Slobodan Milosevic was believed to have considered Stambolic, his former mentor, a threat to his future political authority. In July 2005 Milorad Ulemek was found guilty of his murder and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment. The sentence also took account of Ulemek's role in the attempted killing of another threat to Milosevic, Vuk Draskovic.[5]
Djindjic, Serbia's first democratically elected leader after the toppling of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's regime in October 2000, was shot dead outside the Serbian government building on March 12, 2003. Several members of the Red Berets and the criminal group known as the Zemun clan were also convicted of his murder.[2]
The Red Berets were used during Milosevic's rule for special operations in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, as well as for the elimination of Milosevic's political opponents.[2]
Djindjic's assassination was described by Presiding Judge Nata Mesarovic as "a political murder, a criminal act aimed against the state", in which police officers and the Mafia had joined hands to kill Djindjic and gain political power.[2]
Ulemek's deputy in the Red Berets, Zvezdan Jovanovic, was convicted of shooting Djindjic.[2]
The Djindjic murder trial was the first organised crime trial in Serbia. There were threats to the trial chamber, witness intimidation and the murder of a witness. The first trial chamber president, Marko Kljajevic, left the process in August 2005. One of the most controversial moments of the process was Ulemek's surrender in May 2004, claiming he had been hiding in his house for nearly 14 months.[2]
He married Maja Lukovic in 1994, in the Hotel Majestic (Mažestik) in Belgrade. He took the surname of his wife.