BELGRADE: Two men were remanded in custody after a Serbian police officer killed a man who shot him with a crossbow outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade in a “targeted terrorist act”, a minister said Sunday.

The assailant, whom the police identified as being a “convert” to Islam, shot the officer while he was on duty in front of the Israeli embassy early Saturday.

The policeman opened fire in self-defence and the attacker later died.

The assailant, from Mladenovac, near Belgrade, lived in Novi Pazar, a historical and political centre of Serbia’s Bosniak Muslim minority, police said.