Operation Sabre ( Serbian: Операција Сабља, ''Operacija Sablja'') was a Serbian police operation in 2003 to find and arrest those responsible for the

assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...

of the

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Zoran Đinđić Zoran Đinđić ( sr-Cyrl, Зоран Ђинђић, ; 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. Đinđić ...

, as well as other persons who were suspected to have connections to organized crime groups.

Background

Immediately after the assassination of Đinđić, a

state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...

was declared by interim president,

Nataša Mićić Nataša Mićić ( sr-Cyrl, Наташа Мићић; Jovanović; born 2 November 1965) is a Serbian lawyer and politician who served as the acting president of Serbia from 2002 to 2004. Mićić graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law ...

, giving the government and police extraordinary powers in the pursuit of the assassins. The state of emergency lasted from the day of the assassination, 12 March 2003, until 22 April 2003.

Action

The primary goal of the action in Operation Sabre was to find the assassins of Đinđić, but the investigation expanded to other persons who were suspected to have connections to organized crime groups. In the course of Operation Sabre, the police claimed to solve several other high-profile crimes which had been unresolved for years, including the assassination of former Serbian President,

Ivan Stambolić Ivan Stambolić ( sr, Иван Стамболић; 5 November 1936 – 25 August 2000) was a Serbian politician. He was a prominent member of the League of Communists of Serbia who served as the President of the Presidency of Serbia in the 19 ...

. The members of several organised crime groups were eliminated in the course of Operation Sabre, including the

Zemun clan The Zemun Clan (Serbian Cyrillic: Земунски клан) is one of the Belgrade clans of the Serbian mafia. It is named for the gang's base in Zemun, a municipality of Belgrade. The peak of the clan's power and influence occurred between 1999 ...

, some of whom were former members of an elite police unit, the Special Operations Unit. Milan Sarajlić, the Deputy State Prosecutor of Serbia, was arrested and confessed to being on the payroll of the Zemun clan.

Criticism

11,665 people were detained in connection with suspected links to organized crime. Among them were many public figures and entertainers. According to Gow, "The state of emergency period in general, and Operation 'Sabre' in particular, remain controversial in some political circles, and concerns were raised that the Government and the police used the situation to deal with political opponents." Some political opponents accused the government of

human rights abuse Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

during the operation but the government and proponents of the action pointed out that the

Serbia and Montenegro Serbia and Montenegro ( sr, Cрбија и Црна Гора, translit=Srbija i Crna Gora) was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...

became a member of the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...

during the action and that the majority of the organizations sent to analyze the situation during the operation including the

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, prom ...

declared that the operation was performed without breaches of human rights. Some organisations disagree, notably

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

, which was critical of detention in isolation and interrogation without a lawyer being present, and

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

, which alleged ill-treatment and torture.

References

2003 in Serbia 2003 crimes in Serbia

Sabre A sabre ( French: �sabʁ or saber in American English) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the early modern and Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such as th ...

Zoran Dindic {{law-enforcement-stub