Case against Milosevic finally closed

The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague today announced the formal end of the case against Slobodan Milosevic following the Serb leader’s death last weekend.

The court expressed regrets that a verdict in the landmark trial was now impossible.

“His death terminates the proceedings,” said Presiding Judge Patrick Robinson, in a hearing that lasted barely two minutes.

Robinson, who had clashed often with the stubborn and combative Milosevic during the four-year trial, said he regretted his death.

Milosevic was within weeks of winding up his defence, which he was conducting himself, against 66 counts of war crimes, including genocide, during the Balkan upheavals of the 1990s.

“We also regret that his untimely death has deprived not only him but all interested parties of a judgment,” said Robinson.

“An order will be issued shortly terminating the proceedings,” he said before leading the three judges out of Courtroom 1, which had been the scene of high drama and wrenching testimony from victims and witnesses, and sometimes perpetrators, of atrocities.

Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart problems, was found dead on Saturday in his cell.

Preliminary autopsy findings said he had a heart attack, but doubts were heightened about the cause of death after a Dutch toxicologist confirmed that traces of an unprescribed drug had been found previously in his blood.

Robinson was the second judge to preside over the case. British justice Richard May resigned from the tribunal for reasons of ill health in 2004, and died several months later.

Since Milosevic’s death, the judges have come under criticism from different directions for their conduct of the case.

Serbia, backed by Russia, denounced them for refusing Milosevic’s request in recent months to be temporarily freed to go to Moscow for treatment, and say he was denied adequate medical care at the UN detention centre.

Legal experts criticised the court for going too far to accommodate Milosevic’s requests, including allowing him to defend himself despite the strain of preparing his defence and the stress of questioning witnesses in the courtroom.

Critics also say it was a mistake to lump three indictments into one long trial rather than deal with them separately, and to isolate Milosevic from other Serb leaders indicted alongside him as part of what the prosecutors called a “joint criminal exercise”.

Had there been other defendants, the trial would have continued after Milosevic’s death and a verdict could have been rendered.

Milosevic was accused of orchestrating the Balkan wars to create a “Greater Serbia” by linking the Serb republic with Serb-dominated areas of Bosnia and Croatia, which could be achieved only after the “ethnic cleansing” of non-Serbs in those areas.