Serbian Convictions

Milorad Ulemek, a special police commander under Serbia's former dictator Slobodan Milosevic, and his deputy Zvezdan Jovanovic were found guilty of gunning down Djindjic on March 12, 2003. They were given the maximum sentence, 40 years.

"It was all prepared by Ulemek," Judge Nata Mesarevic said in front of a special court in the Serbian capital Belgrade. "Jovanovic fired the shots."

10 other people -- some in absentia -- were convicted as accessories to the murder and received sentences of between eight and 35 years.

The convictions end legal proceedings that began in December 2004 and that local media have called Serbia's "trial of the century."

Questions of motive

The prosecutors' indictment accused Ulemek and Jovanovic of assassinating the reformist Djindjic to prevent him both from pursuing pro-Western policies and from cracking down on organized crime.

The two men fought as paramilitaries in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. In addition, they and other defendants were linked to the Serbian mafia.

But many Djindjic supporters, including a lawyer for the family, are calling for further trials, saying that the conspiracy behind the former reformist prime minister's assassination extended far beyond the defendants convicted on Wednesday.

Djindjic, who took power after Milosovic's ousting in 2000, attracted the hatred of Serbian nationalists for extraditing the ex-dictator to the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague the following year.