The Yugoslav Government has promised a stern response to the assassination of Defence Minister Pavle Bulatovic.

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic joined other government figures at a memorial service for Mr Bulatovic.

"Pavle was a patriot and he put his life in the function of the defence of the country," Yugoslavia's deputy prime minister, Nikola Sainovic, said in a speech.

"A shot in Pavle was a shot in all of us."

Mr Sainovic, who is under indictment by the UN war crimes tribunal for atrocities committed last year in Kosovo, pledged the government will fight "terrorism" as a "sacred duty of the state."

Although specific measures have yet to be announced, the BBC correspondent in Belgrade says that tough new anti-terrorism laws are expected.

Opposition leaders say the killing is a sign of a breakdown in the rule of law.

Leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Party Vladan Batic said the defence minister's assassination was "absolutely tragic, and that it showed that the rule of law does not exist in Serbia".

As defence minister, Mr Bulatovic played a key role in the crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Favourite table

Mr Bulatovic, 51, was sitting at his favourite table in the restaurant of Rad football club on Monday evening when gunmen using automatic weapons began firing through windows.

Police said the owner of the restaurant, Mirko Knezevic, and a banker, Vuk Obradovic, unrelated to the opposition politician, were also shot and slightly wounded.

The shooting occurred less than a month after Serbia's most notorious warlord, Zeljko Raznatovic, known as Arkan, was assassinated in a Belgrade hotel.

Some in Belgrade believe that Mr Bulatovic's killing was in revenge for Arkan's death.

The killing also resembles the assassination of Serbian uniformed police chief and deputy interior minister Radovan "Badza" Stojicic in another Belgrade restaurant in 1997.

Montenegrin connection

Mr Bulatovic, a close ally of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, comes from Montenegro, the smaller of two republics which make up the Yugoslav Federation.

He was a senior member of the Socialist People's Party (SPP), led by Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic, another long-time Milosevic loyalist. The two men are not related. The SPP opposes the Western-leaning Montenegrin leadership.

The Rad restaurant is a known meeting place for Montenegrins loyal to President Milosevic and Mr Bulatovic - who took the defence portfolio in 1994 - was often seen there.



Banana republic

One opposition figure said the killing of such a high-ranking government official was a sign of a society where no citizen felt safe.

His friends described him as a modest man, who only followed orders.

They said he was not involved in any shadowy businesses and expressed disbelief and shock when he was assassinated.

Opposition leader predicted there would be more killings "because the regime does not want to tackle the causes of organised crime".

Miodrag Vlahovic, a political analyst in Montenegro's capital Podgorica, said the killing of Mr Bulatovic could be the result of a "conflict of interest" concerning business arrangements among top Yugoslav officials.

"The country in which the defence minister is killed like that in a restaurant is a real banana republic, there is no doubt about that," Mr Vlahovic said.