Slobodan Milosevic found dead in prison cell

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president indicted for war crimes for orchestrating the Balkan wars of the 1990s, was found dead in his prison cell near The Hague, the UN tribunal said today.

Milosevic, 64, was found dead in his bed at a UN prison near The Hague, the tribunal said in a statement. He appeared to have died of natural causes, a tribunal press officer said. A full autopsy and toxicological examination have been ordered, the tribunal said.

“The guard immediately alerted the detention unit officer in command and the medical officer. The latter confirmed that Slobodan Milosevic was dead,” the statement said.

Milosevic had been on trial since February 2002, defending himself against 66 counts, including genocide, in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo – proceedings repeatedly interrupted by Milosevic’s poor health and chronic heart condition.

The trial was recessed last week until Tuesday to await his next defence witness. Milosevic also was waiting for a court decision on his request to subpoena former US President Bill Clinton as a witness.

His death comes less than a week after the star witness in his trial, former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, was found dead in the same prison. His testimony in 2002 described a political and military command structure headed by Milosevic in Belgrade that operated behind the scenes.

Babic, who was serving a 13-year prison sentence, committed suicide.

Milosevic’s death will be a crushing blow to the tribunal and to those who were looking to establish an authoritative historical record of the Balkan wars.

Though the witness testimony is on public record, history will be denied the judgment of a panel of legal experts weighing the evidence of his personal guilt and the story of his regime.

“Unfortunately, he did not face justice for crimes he has committed in Kosovo as well,” Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister Lufi Haziri said in Pristina.

Last month the UN’s highest court, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, began hearings on a claim by Bosnia that Serbia was responsible for genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war – the first time a state has been put on trial for the worst crime of international law.

Milosevic was due to complete his defence at the war crimes tribunal this summer. But during months of presenting his case, he barely touched on the Bosnian war or the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995. Instead, he focused on the 1999 war in Kosovo.