British security officials gave five warnings that Serbian commandos might be planning attacks abroad before Jill Dando was murdered, declassified documents reveal.
It was feared that desperate dictator Slobodan Milosevic had dispatched secret military units into Europe in response to Nato’s bombing of Yugoslavia which began on March 24, 1999. None of the secret files were made available to the Met Police team investigating Jill’s murder a month later, it is understood. It comes as the Daily Mirror revealed fresh evidence suggesting that the former Crimewatch presenter may have been killed by ruthless Serbian assassin Milorad Ulemek. At the time, Ulemek, then 31, led the unit that targeted opponents of brutal Milosevic.
The Yugoslav war was raging and UK planes were bombing Serbia when Jill was shot dead on her doorstep on April 26, 1999. Within hours of her murder, the BBC took a call claiming the death was in response. A man said: “Tell your Prime Minister, in Belgrade 15 people were killed, so 14 more to go.”
It was feared that Jill had been targeted because she had fronted a charity appeal for Kosovan refugees 20 days earlier. Ulemek’s former spymaster Dragan Filipović revealed that he had dispatched several of his special forces soldiers into Europe to carry out revenge killings in response to the bombings.
Filipović, known as Major Fića, wrote in his 2008 book, Anatomy of the Globalist Stink, that one operation was carried out leading to “great confusion” in Europe. National Archives files show concerns were first raised in the UK on April 4, 1999, that Serbian units might be covertly deployed in Nato countries to carry out revenge attacks.
A “secret” Ministry of Defence briefing on day 11 of the bombing campaign, codenamed Operation Allied Force, said: “According to Italian intelligence at least 70 Serb elements might have departed for various NATO European countries, allegedly to conduct terrorist operations against trains and subway stations.” The next day an MoD memo marked “Secret UK eyes only” stated: “Reports suggest Serbs may start terror campaign in Western Europe, they are assessed to have limited capability in this field.”
Another “MoD rolling brief”, written three days later, said the Yugoslavian Interior Ministry “allegedly will dispatch special commando units, in unspecified western European countries, in the near future”. It added: “Additional reporting indicates that at least 70 Serb extremists might be travelling, on false passports, to NATO countries to conduct terrorist activities.”
It is known that Ulemek later used a stolen Croatian passport to travel the world as he planned the assassination of then Serbian President Zoran Djindjic in 2003. The document was stamped at 26 European border crossings, Interpol’s former Secretary General Ronald Noble said in 2011.
On April 20, six days before Jill was murdered, a Nato intelligence report marked “secret” said that it had been reported that Milosevic personally “dispatched a team, on 19 April, to Italy to conduct terrorist activities”. In a Disasters Emergency Committee appeal made on April 6, Jill described Kosovo as a “former Yugoslavian region”, something that would have enraged nationalist Filipovic who saw it as the “cradle” of his country.
In his 2008 book he railed against non-governmental organisations which he said were based on the doctrine of “special war” and were designed to destabilise foreign leaders in the interests of the West. Jill’s BBC appeal was on behalf of some of the UK’s largest NGOs, potentially making her a legitimate target in Filipovic’s warped view.
A Serbian source with knowledge of the country’s security services said of Jill’s appeal: “It could be perceived as part of a ‘special war’ against Milosevic and Serbia and the secret service could have taken some [action].” At the time Milorad “Legija” Ulemek was a senior member of the Jedinica za specijalne operacije (JSO) – a 500-man unit of the Serbian Intelligence Service that Filipovic founded and selected his operatives from.
The source said that it was Filipović, now in his 60s, who headhunted Ulemek for his JSO unit after they met while fighting in Croatia and Bosnia during the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s. He persuaded the former French Foreign Legion soldier to shift allegiances from warlord Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan’s Serbian Volunteer Guard, or Tigers, the source said.
Major Fića, was believed to have accompanied Ulemek when he attempted to assassinate Serb politician Vuk Draskovic in October 1999, the source added. Ulemek later told a court that he contacted Filipović’s boss to make himself available for a “special operation” on April 15, 1999, eleven days before Jill was killed.
The ruthless killer said that he was fighting in Kosovo when he made the offer to the head of the security services, Radomir Markovic. Markovic and Ulemek are serving 40 years in jail for plotting two assassinations for brutal dictator Milosevic, who died in 2006, and his powerful nationalist wife Mira Markovic.
Known as the “Lady Macbeth of the Balkans”, Filipović was close to Mira who was suspected of plotting state-sponsored assassinations. She later fled to Russia where she died in 2019. Mira played a major role in the bloody end of her husband’s rule, including the murders of journalist Slavko Curuvija and former president Ivan Stambolic.
The Serbian source said in “the terminal phase” of the Milosevic government the security services were controlled by a “notorious” inner circle close to his wife. He said: “In their criminal minds the idea was conceived of eliminating political opponents and journalists.”
One of a handful of European Kung Fu masters to train with Shaolin monks, Filipović is understood to have fled to China as Curuvija’s killers were arrested. In April 1999, he was Special Advisor to Markovic, then head of the Serbian State Security Services, known as “DB”.
Filipović wrote: “My responsibilities included planning, organizing and carrying out special intelligence and subversive actions against NATO member states, as well as states that supported them during the attack on Yugoslavia, with the aim of endangering their political stability and combat readiness. The tasks particularly included secret reprisal actions deep inside enemy territory.” Filipović wrote that he was ordered to halt the plots by Markovic in June 1999, when a peace treaty was signed.
“In the meantime, one of the previously initiated actions, although with considerable delay, was successfully implemented, which caused a great confusion in Europe.” He does not specify what the “radical action” was, though the clear implication is that it was a state-sponsored assassination.
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