The court in Belgrade confirmed the 40-year sentence on Friday for Radomir Markovic over a 1999 plot to kill former Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic.

Six others accused of involvement in the attack were handed jail terms ranging from six months to 35 years.

The supreme court also confirmed the maximum sentence for Milorad Ulemek "Legija," the former head of an elite secret police unit, who was handed two 40-year jail terms for masterminding the murders of Serbian reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003 and former President Ivan Stambolic in 2000.

The Serbian court also confirmed the maximum sentence for two other members of Ulemek's notorious "Red Berets" police unit.

Branko Bercek and Nenad Illic steered a truck into a convoy of cars carrying Draskovic in the 1999 attack, killing four of his associates.

Those convicted have exhausted their avenues of appeal.

Milosevic died in 2006 while on trial for genocide at a UN war crimes court.

Draskovic praised the verdict as historic because it convicted an ex-state security chief, but said “no verdict can bring true justice.”

Tadic says Mladic arrest vital for EU bid

Meanwhile, Serbian President Boris Tadic said that now that his country has applied for European Union membership, it must arrest the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb army, Ratko Mladic, and another war crimes fugitive sought by a United Nations court.

“We cannot go to Europe without arresting Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic,” Tadic said late on Thursday, referring to the two remaining suspects wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Tadic added that “whoever says they are for European integration, must clearly say they are for the arrest of The Hague suspects.”

Serbia applied for EU membership earlier this week, but the future of the bid hinges on the fugitives' arrest.

Nationalists in Serbia oppose the arrests as they consider Mladic a wartime hero.

rb/AFP/AP
Editor: Chuck Penfold