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Political Assassinations in Europe

May 7, 2002

A chronology

February 28, 1986 – Sweden’s Prime Minister Olof Palme, 59, was shot and killed in Stockholm. Despite a lengthy investigation, police never charged a suspect or found a motive.

Sept. 1, 1992 – Former Polish Prime Minister Piotr Jaroszewicz, 82, is hanged in his villa near Warsaw. His wife is found shot. Police never found the suspects.

October 2, 1996 – Former Bulgarian Prime Minister Andrei Lukanov, 58 is shot in front of his home. The suspect or suspects escaped capture.

February 6, 1998 – The 60-year-old prefect of Corsica, Claude Erignac, is shot to death by two young men in Ajaccio.

October 27, 1999 – Five armed men kill newly-elected Armenian Vazgen Sarkisian, 40, Parliament President Karen Demirchian and six other officials in a rampage. The trial of 13 men suspected of the killings begins in February 2001.

January 15, 2000 – Feared Serbian paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as Arkan, is gunned down in the lobby of Belgrade’s Intercontinental Hotel. A Serbian judge sentences the three men to long prison sentences in October 2001.

June 8, 2000 – Stephen Saunders, the British Military attaché in Athens, Greece is gunned down by members of the Greek terrorist organization 17 November.

March 19, 2002 – Marco Biagi, 51, labor advisor to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is shot dead in Bologna. The leftist radical group Red Brigade claims responsibility for the killing.

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