Paramilitary leader wanted for murder of Serbian prime minister turns himself in

Serbian police confirmed last night that Milorad "Legija" Lukovic, the alleged mastermind of the assassination in March last year of Zoran Djindjic, the then prime minister, has surrendered.

"Milorad 'Legija' Lukovic surrendered to the police around nine o'clock tonight," said a statement from the Interior Ministry. It gave no further details. Mr Lukovic was being held at the Belgrade's Central Prison.

Police sources say that Mr Lukovic, 38, often described as the most wanted man in Serbia, gave himself up in a Belgrade suburb of Skojevsko Naselje. Witnesses say he approached a police patrol. "I am Milorad Lukovic Legija. I came here to give myself up," he said. He was allegedly drunk. Mr Lukovic had been on the run for more than a year. In that period, rumours circled Belgrade that he was hiding in Croatia or Bosnia.

Mr Lukovic has been accused planning the killing of Mr Djindjic, Serbia's first democratically elected prime minister since the Second World War.

Mr Djindjic, a pro-Western reformist who helped topple Slobodan Milosevic, was killed in front of a government building by a single bullet from a sniper on 12 March last year. The man who pulled the trigger, Zvezdan Jovanovic, who allegedly confessed to the assassination, is standing trial before the Special Court in Belgrade.

Mr Lukovic was in the Red Berets special operations unit and a former paramilitary leader under Milosevic.

The Red Berets became notorious for crimes during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia in the early 1990s. Before becoming its commander, Mr Lukovic was a member of theTigers, the paramilitary unit led by the late warlord Zeljko Raznatovic, known as Arkan.

He spent several years in the French Foreign Legion, for which he was given the nickname Legija, or Legion.

The Red Berets had perpetrated a number of politically motivated crimes under Milosevic. One was the killing of Milosevic's predecessor as Serbian president, Ivan Stambolic, in August 2000.