BELGRADE (AP) - A key eyewitness of the murder of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic has been killed by unidentified gunmen in front of his home, a judge in Djindjic’s assassination trial said yesterday. Kujo Krijestorac, 51, an entrepreneur from a Belgrade suburb, was killed execution-style with a gun fitted with a silencer on March 1, said judge Maja Kovacevic of the Special Court in Belgrade, where he was to appear in the high-profile trial against Djindjic’s alleged assassins. A lawyer for Djindjic’s family, Rajko Danilovic, told AP that Krijestorac’s death would not directly affect the assassination trial because “the statement he had given to prosecutors will be read in court,” but killing Krijestorac may have been an attempt to “intimidate other witnesses.”

ANKARA (AFP) - The Turkish government is planning to push through Parliament a set of constitutional amendments to haul itself up to EU norms before a key decision by the European Union in December on whether to open accession talks with Ankara, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said yesterday. “The constitution does not conform to the EU (norms). The planned constitutional amendments will be an expression of our determination before the December summit,” Cicek told the NTV news channel in an interview. Among the planned reforms are the abolition of state security courts, which are tasked with crimes committed against the state, according to the NTV report.

The Bulgarian government yesterday formally lost its absolute majority in the 240-seat Parliament after a new split in Premier Simeon Saxe-Coburg’s party, but the breakaway group said it would continue to back the center-right government. Ten members of the premier’s National Simeon II Movement and one independent yesterday announced formation of a new parliamentary group, New Times, reducing the government majority from 128 to 117. Saxe-Coburg’s party governs in coalition with the Turkish minority Movement for Rights and Freedoms. (AFP)

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s acting head of state, assembly speaker Ljupco Jordanovski, yesterday called early presidential elections for April 14 to choose a successor for Boris Trajkovski, killed in a plane crash in Bosnia late last month. (Reuters)

Kosovo and Serbia officials huddled in Pristina yesterday to discuss the fate of nearly 4,000 people missing since the 1998-1999 Kosovo war as part of an ongoing UN-backed dialogue. The chairman of the meeting, Francois Stamm, of the Red Cross, said talks were held in a “positive and constructive atmosphere.” (AFP)

An unknown burglar crept into a snake tank at night and stole a python from a Croatian zoo, police reported yesterday. The royal or ball python was stolen on Monday from a giant glass tank inside an area reserved for snakes at the capital Zagreb’s city zoo. (AP)