A Serb lawyer who helped defend the country’s former dictator Slobodan Milosevic at his war crimes trial has been shot dead.
Dragoslav Ognjanovic, 57, was gunned down in front of his apartment building in the Novi Beograd neighbourhood of the Serb capital. His 26-year-old son was wounded in the right arm, the Serbian Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Mr Ognjanovic was part of the legal team that defended Mr Milosevic at the UN tribunal in The Hague, where he was tried for war crimes which took place during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Mr Milosevic died of a heart attack in 2006 before his trial could be concluded.
In a statement, the head of the Bar Association in Belgrade, Viktor Gostiljac, said the shooting of Mr Ognjanovic was an attack on all lawyers.
“We will exert maximum pressure on the competent state authorities in order to find the perpetrators of this crime,” said Mr Gostiljac.
Mr Ognjanovic also served as a defence lawyer in several high-profile mafia cases in Serbia and Montenegro.
A number of prominent members of Serbian and Montenegrin organised crime networks have been killed in Belgrade in recent years.
Serbian police have suggested that the killings are part of a gang war over the illegal drugs market.
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