A prominent Belgrade lawyer, who had previously helped to defend Slobodan Milosevic, strongman of Serbia, was killed by gunshots, in an ambush in gangster style, in front of his home.

Dragoslav Ognjanovic , 57, was shot dead in front of a condominium in the Novi Beograd district and his 26-year-old son was injured in his right arm. The Ministry of the Interior confirms this in a statement.

As a criminal lawyer, Ognjanovic served in the early 2000s in the legal team that helped defend Milosevic in his war crimes trial before the United Nations tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Milosevic died in the court's detention unit in 2006 before a verdict was reached.

Over the years, Ognjanovic has also defended some of the main characters of the Serbian criminal world. Several prominent members of the Serbian and Montenegrin organized crime networks have been killed in Belgrade in the last two years in what the police describe as a war on the illegal drugs market.