Belgrade - A senior official of the ruling left-wing alliance of President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia was shot dead yesterday in an attack apparently linked to political and gangland violence in Belgrade.
The shooting of Mr Zoran Todorovic (38), a secretary of the powerful neo-communist United Yugoslav Left (JUL) party, followed the unsolved murder this year of Mr Milosevic's police chief, Gen Radovan Stojicic.
Mr Todorovic, nicknamed Kundak (rifle butt), was a close political protege of Mr Milosevic's wife, Ms Mirjana Markovic, who founded and heads JUL. The killing of a man so close to the ruling family stunned Belgrade's political elite.