Former Yugoslav President Milosevic Dies

Brian in Mesa · March 11th, 2006, 06:11 AM

Former Yugoslav President Milosevic Dies
Milosevic never showed any regret for his actions in office

Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, known as the "Butcher of the Balkans," was found dead in his cell room bed Saturday, the UN tribunal judging him for war crimes and genocide said.

"Today, Saturday, March 11, Slobodan Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell at the United Nations detention unit in Scheveningen," said a statement by the court in the Hague.

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

The court launched an inquiry into the death.

A full autopsy and a toxicological report have been ordered, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said.

Milosevic's family were informed of his death, it added. But Russia's Interfax news agency quoted the brother of Milosevic -- Borislav Milosevic -- as saying the tribunal in the Hague "carries full responsibility" for the death.

Milosevic, 64, had been on trial before the UN court since February 2002 on more than 60 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1990s Balkan wars. He was facing separate genocide charges related to the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

Milosevic, who defended himself, never recognized the court's legitimacy and refused to even to make written submissions.

Lead to reconciliation?

Europe reacted with hope that his death might lead to reconciliation in the region.

"I hope very much this event, the death of Milosevic will help Serbia to look definitely to the future," said European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, in Salzburg for EU talks with Balkans policymakers.

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, also at the EU talks, said Milosevic's death made no change politically to the history of the region and in particular for Belgrade.

"That is a pity he didn't face the justice in Belgrade," Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic told reporters at the talks. Milosevic "ordered a few times assassination attempts against my life," he added.

Milosevic defied international sanctions and NATO bombs over nearly a decade of strife in the former Yugoslavia and was unmoved by the accusations against him.

He stoked conflicts that left more than 200,000 people dead, up to three million homeless and the Yugoslav economy in ruins.

No apologies

But the burly firebrand made no apologies for his actions in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, where his drive for a Greater Serbia "cleansed" of Croats and Muslims sparked a rash of grisly massacres and finally a showdown with the West.

"I'm proud for everything I did in defending my country and my people," he told US television network Fox News in a phone interview in 2001 from his jail outside the Hague while he was awaiting trial.

"All my decisions are legitimate and legal, based on the constitution of Yugoslavia and based on the rights to self-defense."

Milosevic was the first former head of state to appear before an international criminal court and faced life in jail if convicted. But he portrayed himself as a besieged statesman who struggled to keep the crumbling Yugoslav federation intact against separatists and "terrorists."

The wily Serb matched bluff and cockiness with what one commentator called "a Machiavellian flare for shedding identities which are of no more use to him."

Born the son of an Orthodox priest, he started his career as a faceless Communist minion, later fashioned himself into a successful businessman and technocrat, and bullied his way into political prominence as a ruthless champion of the Serbian cause.

Redrage · March 11th, 2006, 08:53 AM

If there is a hell, I'm willing to bet it just gained one more inhabitant.

Southpaw · March 11th, 2006, 03:43 PM

Conspiracy

Way too convenient, for a guy who wasn't sick.

SirStefan32 · March 11th, 2006, 05:40 PM

LoyaltyisaCurse · March 11th, 2006, 07:22 PM

Good.

DjaugheOld · March 12th, 2006, 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wallyburger

Conspiracy

Way too convenient, for a guy who wasn't sick.

I recken even this trial had a time clock.

I wonder how Saddam feels about that.

AZZenny · March 12th, 2006, 07:08 AM

'Reportedly' he told his attorney the day before that he believed he was being poisoned. Atty shows up next day to find him dead. The Hague will do the autopsy but have agreed to have a Serbian pathologist observe.

Then again, 64-year-olds do have sudden heart attacks and apoplectic strokes, even when looking otherwise pretty healthy.

Then again... 2006 is looking like a good year for conspiracy theorists.

AZZenny · March 12th, 2006, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, 64, was found dead in his cell at The Hague early Saturday, March 11. His lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic announced a few hours later that Milosevic had told him Friday that he feared he was being poisoned in the UN detention facility. He at once passed that information to the Russian embassy and now demanded that the official autopsy be conducted in Moscow, not The Hague.

The truth may never be known about the alleged poisoning claim.

The lawyer is in close touch with the Milosevic family in Moscow, who immediately announced their suspicion of foul play. The tribunal, they said was responsible for his death by refusing to let him have medical treatment for high blood pressure and a heart condition in Moscow.

Balkan and Russian sources believe that the accused leader was politically cunning and manipulative enough to engineer his death in a way to cause the greatest possible international shock and embarrassment. He may have instructed his lawyer to pass the poisoning suggestion to the Russian embassy and then deliver the bombshell after his death, together with the demand for the autopsy to take place in Moscow.

It will be recalled that Russian opinion under Boris Yeltsin backed Milosevic in the Balkan Wars as a great Serbian patriot and admired his willingness to defy the Americans and the Europeans and fight a Muslim takeover of the Balkans. He also had the support of the Russian Orthodox Church.

For the West, the former Yugoslav president is a war criminal who plunged his country into four ruinous wars among Serbs, Bosnians and Croatians, and was responsible for 200,000 deaths and countless atrocities.

Four months ago, the Russians asked the tribunal to let Milosevic travel to Moscow for medical treatment at a specialist clinic. They promised to send him back to continue his trial in The Hague. But the judges decided the accused was trying another delaying tactic and said no. Now, Milosevic’s wife, Miryana Markovic, his son Marko, and brother, Borislav, who live in self-imposed exile in Russia, accuse the tribunal of killing the former Serbian ruler.

The second front concerns his funeral.

Held in Serbia, it would have to be a state funeral even for a former president. However his widow and son are both wanted in Belgrade on criminal charges, Furthermore, he still has enough supporters at home to disrupt a funeral staged by his pro-Western successors. Given the enormous difficulties, burying him Russia makes the most sense and also fit in with the dead man’s wishes. A state funeral in Belgrade would mark the end of Serbia’s Milosevic era, a favor he is anxious to deny the incumbents, whereas a tomb in Russia would become a shrine for Serbian nationalists and keep alive their dream of a Greater Serbia.

Six days before the Serbian leader’s death, one of his associates, the Serbian Croat Milan Babic, committed suicide in the same UN prison. He was serving a 13-year sentence on the charge of ethnic cleansing. The War Crimes Tribunal faces an awkward inquiry over the two Serbian deaths in UN custody in less than a week.

Ooops. Need a new chef, maybe. This is thick with possibilities.

Brian in Mesa · March 12th, 2006, 02:01 PM

Tests Show Milosevic Died of Heart Attack
By ANTHONY DEUTSCH, Associated Press Writer

A heart attack killed Slobodan Milosevic in his jail cell, the U.N. war crimes tribunal said, citing preliminary findings from Dutch pathologists who conducted a nearly eight-hour autopsy Sunday on the former Yugoslav leader.

The tribunal said pathologists had determined that "Milosevic's cause of death was a 'myocardial infarction.'"

Found dead in his cell Saturday morning, the 64-year-old Milosevic had suffered from heart ailments and high blood pressure, and his bad health caused numerous breaks in his four-year, $200 million trial before the tribunal.

Some wondered if suicide might have been an out for the man accused of causing wars that killed 250,000 people during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. And a legal adviser said Milosevic feared he was being poisoned.

Earlier, the chief U.N. prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, had said claims that Milosevic committed suicide or was poisoned were "just rumors."

"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 on 66 counts of war crimes and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during Yugoslavia's violent breakup in the 1990s.

Milosevic's body was to be delivered to his family by Monday, according to the tribunal and an official in Serbia-Montenegro. But there was disagreement among relatives about whether he should be buried in his homeland of Serbia or in Russia, where his wife and son live in exile.

In Serbia, Milosevic loyalists burned candles in memory of their fallen hero at branches of his Socialist Party. Elderly women sobbed and kissed his photographs adorned with black cloth, while nationalists signed condolence books declaring him a defender of "Serb honor."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would have none of that, calling Milosevic "one of the most malign forces in Europe in quite a long time."

"Some feel that they wish there had been the opportunity to bring him to justice and to have the final verdict of history be in the courts, but I think the final verdict of history about Milosevic is pretty clear," Rice said after visiting Chile.

A pathologist sent by Serbia observed the autopsy at the Netherlands Forensic Institute, an agency of the Dutch Justice Ministry.

Tribunal spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov said the autopsy revealed Milosevic had been suffering from two heart conditions. Asked if poisoning could have caused the heart attack, Milenov said it was too early to draw conclusions.

She said the inquiry into Milosevic's death was continuing, with a final report expected to be released within days.

Outside the tribunal's offices, Milosevic's legal adviser showed reporters a six-page letter that he said the former leader wrote the day before his death claiming traces of a powerful drug used to treat leprosy or tuberculosis had been found in his bloodstream.

Zdenko Tomanovic said Milosevic was seriously concerned. "They would like to poison me," he quoted Milosevic as telling him.

A Dutch state broadcaster, NOS, said later that an adviser to the tribunal confirmed such a drug was found in a blood sample taken in recent months from Milosevic. The report said the adviser, who was not identified, said the drug could have had a "neutralizing effect" on Milosevic's other medications.

Doctors found traces of the drug when they were trying to determine why Milosevic's medication for high blood pressure was not working, the NOS report said.

Milosevic had appealed unsuccessfully to the war crimes tribunal last December to be allowed to go to a heart clinic in Moscow for treatment. He repeated the request as late as last month.

In Belgrade, Rasim Ljajic, human rights minister for Serbia-Montenegro, said Milosevic's remains would be handed over to the former leader's family by Monday. His comments were confirmed by the tribunal.

Milosevic's older brother, Borislav, suggested to Serbia's Beta news agency that he should be buried "in his own country, as he's a son of Serbia."

But the late leader's wife, Mirjana Markovic, and their son, Marko, could be arrested if they returned to Serbia for a funeral. They want Milosevic buried in Moscow, where they live, Beta said.

Milosevic's daughter, Marija, disagreed with both sites. She said the burial should be in Montenegro, at the family grave in the town of Lijeva Rijeka. "He's not a Russian to be buried in Moscow," she told Beta, adding that she would not attend a Moscow funeral.

Milosevic, the first sitting head of state to be indicated for war crimes, was arrested early in 2001 after being forced from power when Serbs grew tired of the hardships brought by the Balkans conflicts.

Despite the lengthy proceedings, his death means there will be no judicial verdict on his alleged crimes.

"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 Serbia's U.N.-administered Kosovo province, 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."

While some Serbs spent Sunday mourning Milosevic, others marked the third anniversary of the slaying of a key Milosevic foe: the charismatic Zoran Djindjic, who headed the pro-democracy movement that toppled Milosevic and engineered his handover to the U.N. court for trial.

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."

Bosko Djokovic, a 35-year-old Belgrade teacher, called it "poetic justice" that Milosevic died on the eve of the anniversary. The Serb strongman "was responsible for Djindjic's death, and he ultimately paid for that," Djokovic said.

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

Milosevic's trial was the longest and most expensive of the cases before the tribunal, which has spent about $1 billion in total, experts say.

AZZenny · March 12th, 2006, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Milosevic was the sixth war crimes suspect from the Balkans to die at The Hague.

!!! Oooooo-Kay. Now we're way beyond coincidence and into the realm of statistical improbability, I'd say.

Let's transfer Saddam to The Hague. Just to test out the conspiracy theory with a non-Serb.

Southpaw · March 13th, 2006, 03:48 AM

Come on Zenny. Coincidences happen quite often, don't they?

P.S. It's not like any of these so called " political trials" will ever come to a fruitful conclusion. Will they? Maybe why they sent Napoleon to Elba.

CaptTurbo · March 13th, 2006, 05:41 AM

Conspiracy?

They burned his prison build 1 or 2 years ago trying to kill him. Some party wanted him dead. Most likely a muslim/croatian or even a serbian group.

Dback Jon · March 13th, 2006, 06:53 AM

Good ridance...