Milosevic died of heart failure: UN tribunal

By Nicola Leske

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Slobodan Milosevic’s death months
before a verdict in his war crimes trial was the result of
heart failure, the U.N. said on Sunday, but more tests were
needed to decide whether it was from natural causes or suicide.

A preliminary autopsy report on the body of Milosevic,
branded the “Butcher of the Balkans” over the 1990s conflicts,
presented the heart failure finding as some world figures and
war victims’ relatives said the death robbed them of justice.

The autopsy on the body of the 64-year-old former Yugoslav
president, who had a heart condition and high blood pressure,
was conducted by Dutch scientists and attended by Serbian
pathologists. Serbia said the autopsy was very professional.

Milosevic, found dead in his cell on Saturday, faced a
possible life sentence over the tribunal’s charges on 66 counts
of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes involving
conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo as Yugoslavia imploded.

“According to the pathologist, Slobodan Milosevic’s cause
of death was a ‘myocardial infarction’ (heart failure),” said a
statement issued by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

“A toxicological examination will still be carried out,” it
said. A tribunal spokeswoman said the final report on
Milosevic’s death may take more than a day.

The tribunal said Milosevic’s body would be released to his
family on Monday but it was not immediately clear where it
would go — his widow lives in Russia and faces arrest in
Serbia — and where the burial or cremation would take place.

RISE TO POWER

Milosevic rose to the top of Yugoslav politics in the power
vacuum left by the 1980 death of Yugoslavia’s post-World War
Two communist dictator Marshal Josip Broz Tito.

Elected Serbian president in 1990, he ruled with an iron
grip until his overthrow in 2000. There was little grief in
Serbia at the weekend, now in talks on steps to EU membership.

U.N. chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte said earlier on
Sunday it was possible Milosevic had committed suicide and that
his death made it all the more urgent to catch others blamed
for the horrors of the Balkan wars.

Del Ponte said he might have wanted to thwart the impending
verdict in his marathon four-year-old war crimes trial, which
she said she had expected to be one of guilty.

She noted it was the second death in a week at the Hague
tribunal’s detention center. Former Croatian Serb leader Milan
Babic committed suicide last Sunday.

Milosevic’s lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic said his client had
feared he was being poisoned, but the tribunal rejected a
request for the autopsy to be done in Russia, close ally of the
former Yugoslavia and home to Milosevic’s wife, brother and
son.

Tomanovic said his client had written to Russia asking for
help a day before his death, adding he had been given the wrong
drugs — including some for leprosy — in a bid to silence him.

Cardiologists treating Milosevic in The Hague had warned he
was at risk of a life-threatening condition known as a
hypertensive emergency, when surges in blood pressure can
damage the heart, kidneys and central nervous system.

SUSPICIOUS TRACES

Reports emerged indicating Milosevic may have had
suspicious traces in his blood or had not been taking
medication.

A blood sample from Milosevic in January contained traces
of drugs used to treat leprosy or tuberculosis that can
neutralize medicine for high blood pressure and heart problems,
Dutch public TV NOS reported, quoting an unnamed tribunal
adviser.

Tribunal president Fausto Pocar said he had ordered a full
inquiry and that Dutch authorities were also investigating.

Del Ponte told a news conference in The Hague that on
behalf of Balkan war victims she regretted the death.

“It deprives the victims of the justice they need and
deserve,” she said. “Now more than ever I expect Serbia to
finally arrest and transfer Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic
to the Hague as soon as possible.”

Serbia is under pressure to send former Bosnian Serb leader
Karadzic and his military commander Mladic — like Milosevic
both accused of genocide — to The Hague or jeopardize its
hopes of joining the European Union, up for discussion next
month.

It was not clear whether Milosevic’s widow Mira Markovic
would come to The Hague to collect his body. She visited him at
the detention center until 2003, when she fled Serbia for
Russia to avoid arrest on charges of abusing her power.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said Milosevic should not get
a state burial and he would not grant an amnesty to his widow.

Apart from a vigil by about 100 die-hard and mostly elderly
supporters at Milosevic’s old party office in Belgrade on
Saturday, there was little display of grief in Serbia.

By contrast, hundreds in Belgrade placed wreaths on the
grave of reformist President Zoran Djindjic, who ousted
Milosevic and who was assassinated three years ago.

(With additional reporting by Douglas Hamilton in Belgrade)