The well-known Serbian lawyer Dragoslav Ognjanovic, who defended former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic during his trial for war crimes, was killed on Saturday night in Belgrade, according to police.
Ognjanovic, 57, was gunned down in front of his apartment building in the Novi Beograd neighborhood and his 26-year-old son was injured in his right arm, Serbian police chief Dejan Kovacecic told Serbian media. The lawyer also defended Luka Bojovic, a leading member of the Mafia in Serbia and Montenegro, according to the Serbian press.
The police did not establish any link between the murder and his work as a lawyer for Milosevic or Bojovic, who is serving a sentence of 18 years in prison in Spain for possession of weapons.
According to Serbian newspapers, Bojovic is one of the leading figures of one of the Kotor clans in Montenegro, which has been waging war with other gangs in Serbia and Montenegro for years. A conflict that has left several dead.
Another Serbian lawyer, Vladimir Zrelec, who was defending Slobodan Saranovic, a prominent member of a rival mafia group, was assassinated in December 2015 in Belgrade.
Dragoslav Ognjanovic was part of Milosevic’s team of legal advisers. They helped him prepare his defence outside the courtroom, since the former Yugoslav leader appeared only before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Milosevic, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, died in 2006 in an ICC prison cell in The Hague.
