Milosevic: Cause of death still unclear

Dutch pathologists conducted a post mortem examination and toxicological tests today to determine what killed Slobodan Milosevic amid claims that the ex-Yugoslav leader feared he was being poisoned.

Milosevic – branded the ‘Butcher of the Balkans’ by critics – was found dead in his bed at the UN jail near The Hague on Saturday morning.

Officials said the results of the post mortem will not be made public today as toxicology testing could take 24 hours to produce results.

The tribunal said there were no outward signs of suicide or unnatural causes - 64-year-old Milosevic suffered for years from heart trouble and high blood pressure.

But Milosevic’s legal adviser claimed the ex-president feared he was being poisoned. He revealed a six-page letter Milosevic wrote just 24 hours before his death, claiming that traces of a “heavy drug” were found in his blood.

Zdenko Tomanovic said Milosevic was “seriously concerned” he was being poisoned.

“’They would like to poison me,”’ he quoted Milosevic as telling him.

Tribunal President Fausto Pocar said he ordered the post mortem and a toxicological examination after a Dutch coroner was unable to establish the cause of death. Serbia sent a pathologist to observe the autopsy at the Netherlands Forensic Institute.

Chief UN prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said claims that Milosevic committed suicide or was poisoned were “just rumours” – but also said no cause could be ruled out until the post mortem results were available.

“You have the choice between normal, natural death and suicide,” she told reporters at the tribunal where Milosevic had been standing trial for more than four years when he died.

But a Milosevic associate who said he spoke to him on Friday described Milosevic as defiant hours before his death.

“He told me, ’Don’t you worry: They will not destroy me or break me. I shall defeat them all,”’ Milorad Vucelic, a Socialist Party official, said in Belgrade.

Milosevic’s body was to be delivered to his family by tomorrow, said Rasim Ljajic, Serbia-Montenegro’s human rights minister.

Milosevic’s family, meanwhile, argued over where to bury him.

His brother, Borislav Milosevic, suggested he should be buried “in his own country, as he’s a son of Serbia”.

But the late ex-leader’s wife, Mirjana Markovic, and their son, Marko are wanted on international arrest warrants for abuse of power, and could be taken into custody if they return to Serbia for a funeral. They want Milosevic buried in Moscow, where they live, Beta said.

Milosevic’s daughter, Marija, said he should be buried in Montenegro, in their family grave in Lijeva Rijeka, north of the capital, Podgorica.

“He’s not a Russian to be buried in Moscow,” she said adding that she would not attend a Moscow funeral.

They blamed the UN tribunal for refusing Milosevic’s request to be allowed medical treatment in Russia.

Milosevic was arrested in 2001 and put on trial in February 2002 on 66 counts for war crimes and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during Yugoslavia’s violent breakup in the 1990s. He was the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes.

But his health problems repeatedly delayed the proceedings, which were due to wrap up this summer. Milosevic suffered from heart trouble and chronic high blood pressure, worsened by the stress of conducting his own defence.

In his letter dated March 20, addressed to the Russian Embassy, Milosevic claimed that a powerful drug used to treat leprosy or tuberculosis had been found in his blood during an examination in January, said Tomanovic, the legal adviser.

Milosevic’s death means there will be no judicial verdict for the charming and cunning Serb accused of ethnic massacres and other Balkan atrocities.

“It is a great pity for justice that the trial will not be completed and no verdict will be rendered,” Del Ponte said. His death “deprives victims of the justice they need and deserve”.

In Kosovo, Ferdone Qerkezi, 52, wept with rage, cursing Milosevic for eluding justice by dying. Her husband and four sons died in a 1999 crackdown by Serb forces.

“He should have been dragged through streets of towns and thrown into a bottomless pit so no one could ever find him,” she said. “For what he has done to us, there is no punishment on earth that befits him.”

“No matter his death, he should be sentenced,” Qerkezi said, her eyes red. “His family should not be able to see him even dead in the next 500 years.”

In Belgrade, Serbians marked the third anniversary of the killing of a key Milosevic foe: the charismatic Zoran Djindjic, who headed the pro-democracy movement that in 2000 toppled Milosevic and engineered the ex-president’s handover for trial at the UN court.

Hundreds gathered in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad handing out recordings of Djindjic’s speeches and urging passers-by to “remember the best Serbia ever had.”

Belgrade teacher Bosko Djokovic, 35, called it “poetic justice” that Milosevic died on the eve of Djindjic’s anniversary. The Serb strongman “was responsible for Djindjic’s death, and he ultimately paid for that”.

Milosevic was the sixth war crimes suspect from the Balkans to die at The Hague. A week earlier, convicted former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, a star prosecution witness in the Milosevic trial, killed himself in the same prison.

Milosevic’s trial was the longest and most expensive of the cases, costing an estimated 200 million US dollars (£168 million). The Yugoslavia tribunal has spent about one billion dollars (£800 million) in total, experts said.

But Del Ponte said she had no regrets over how the Milosevic case was handled. It was the “correct conduct,” she said, noting that his crimes covered three countries and spanned 10 years – longer than the Second World War.