The man Serbian police believe organized the assassination of Zoran Djindjic has given himself up to guards outside his house in Belgrade. Milorad "Legija" Lukovic, formerly a senior figure in the feared Serbian special forces unit, known at the GSA or Red Berets, walked up to the policemen and told them he wanted to surrender on Sunday night, according to a statement from the Interior Ministry.

"Legija showed up in front of his house in Belgrade and told policemen guarding the house that he wanted to surrender," Serbia's public security chief Miroslav Milosevic said according to news agencies. "He was promptly arrested." Lukovic was apparently under the influence of alcohol. The reasons for his decision to surrender were not clear.

Lukovic, who got his "Legija" nickname from a spell in the French Foreign Legion, had been on the run since Serbian Prime Minister Djindjic was shot dead by a sniper on a Belgrade street outside government offices on March 12, 2003. He is being tried in absentia over the murder, along with 12 other suspects, some of which have yet to be apprehended.

The suspects include lower ranking members of the Red Berets, of which two former members were killed during a police manhunt following Djidjic's assassination, and the "Zemun Clan," a criminal gang linked to the group whose alleged motivation for killing the prime minister was for "profit and power."

Lukovic had been Serbia's No. 1 fugitive for the past year, and had been sought even more urgently than the Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who are still wanted by the United Nations and Western powers.

The investigation into pro-Western reformist Prime Minister Djindjic's assassination focused on the possibility of high level Serbian armed forces involvement in the killing after Djindjic's handing over former President Slobodan Milosevic to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

This and a proposed crackdown on organized crime in Serbia are thought to have angered many Serbs who had served and profited under the previous regime. Authorities have said the Djindjic's assassination was part of a plan to topple his government and return Milosevic supporters to power.

The man accused of being the sniper who pulled the trigger, Zvezdan Jovanovic (photo), is being held in custody and is currently on trial after confessing to Djindjic's murder saying he had acted out of patriotism although his legal team have maintained that Jovanovic's confession was made under duress.

Vuk Draskovic, the Serbia-Montenegrin Foreign Minister who himself survived an assassination attempt, said that he was "very glad" that Lukovic had surrendered and hoped that his arrest would open up avenues of investigation that could lead to the solving of other crimes. "I hope that he will tell all about the crimes, who exactly committed them and who ordered them," he said. "Families of the victims need truth and accountability."