Montenegro police chief shot

A Montenegro police chief was shot to death early Tuesday; police arrested 20 suspects after the night ambush killing, officials said.

Slavoljub Scekic, who headed Montenegro's crime investigation police, was gunned down with two short automatic gun bursts shortly after midnight as he parked his car and started walking toward his home in the republic's capital, investigative judge Hamid Ganjola said.

The killer, who fired from a bush some 20 meters (yards) from Scekic's house, fled the scene in a Podgorica suburb by car. Police launched a manhunt for the killer, and had rounded up 20 suspects by early Tuesday, the AP says.

Scekic was the third high-ranking Montenegrin policeman killed since 2000. Montenegro is a hotbed of crime in the Balkans, including human trafficking and cigarette and drug smuggling.

Scekic was reportedly returning home after conducing an investigation and questioning suspects in a similar murder earlier this year of a young Montenegrin man in Podgorica.