Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade.
Zoran ini, the sixth Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, was assassinated on Wednesday 12 March 2003, in Belgrade, Serbia. ini was fatally shot by a sniper while exiting his vehicle outside of the back entrance of the Serbian government headquarters.
Zoran Đinđić (Serbian Cyrillic: Зоран Ђинђић, pronounced [zǒran dʑîːndʑitɕ] (listen); 1 August 1952 – 12 March 2003) was a Serbian politician who served as the prime minister of Serbia from 2001 until his assassination in 2003. He was the mayor of Belgrade in 1997, and long-time opposition politician and a doctor in philosophy.
Đinđić was one of the original thirteen restorers of the modern day Democratic Party, becoming its president in 1994. During the 1990s, he was one of the co-leaders of the opposition to the administration of Slobodan Milošević, and became the Prime Minister of Serbia in 2001 after the overthrow of Milošević.
As Prime Minister, he advocated pro-democratic reforms and the integration of Serbia into European structures. His government ratified the European Convention on Human Rights and implemented innovations in line with the Council of Europe recommendations, which led to the introduction of institutions for the protection of human rights and freedoms and becoming Serbia and Montenegro a member state of the Council of Europe. His government strongly advocated cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Following the arrest of Special Operations Unit (JSO) members and extradition to the ICTY, the JSO organized an armed mutiny in November 2001 in Belgrade. Đinđić was assassinated in 2003 by Zvezdan Jovanović, a former JSO member operative with ties to the Zemun Clan.