Heart tests for Milosevic after rush to hospital

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was undergoing tests under police guard today after he was rushed from his cell at Belgrade’s Central Prison with chest pains.

"There were heart problems that necessitated his transfer to the military hospital in Belgrade,"’ said Milosevic’s lawyer, Toma Fila.

It was nothing too dramatic."

According to Fila's associates, Milosevic first experienced chest pains on Wednesday and was admitted to hospital around midnight, after an initial check-up in the prison.

The independent Beta news agency reported that Milosevic was in a "state prior to a heart attack".

The transfer to Belgrade’s military hospital came only hours after Milosevic’s Socialist Party issued a statement claiming that the former leader's health had been jeopardised by his imprisonment.

The former President was being held in a specially refurbished cell pending an investigation into corruption and abuse of power charges.

Fila had denied reports that Milosevic, 59, suffers from diabetes. When entering prison on April 1, he was diagnosed having high blood pressure. During the 1999 Nato bombing of Yugoslavia, he was rumoured to have suffered a mild stroke.

Without going into details about Milosevic’s condition, the Socialists demanded that their leader be "allowed to defend himself as a free man".

The party, citing "bitterness at a media lynching campaign against Milosevic and his family", also urged that the "harassment" of Milosevic’s family members cease.

Since his dramatic arrest after a two-day stand-off with police on April 1, the Socialists have insisted that Milosevic’s detention was illegal and demanded a special parliamentary investigation.