Milosevic death suspicious

Controversy surrounds the death of Slobodan Milosevic as his supporters suggested he might have been poisoned and opponents expressed regret that he would never face trial.

Nicknamed “The Butcher of the Balkans”, Milosevic was found dead on Saturday morning in his cell at The Hague in the Netherlands, where he was detained while on trial for war crimes.

His lawyer, Zdenko Tomanovic, said on Saturday night that the former Serb leader had told him the day before that he thought he was being poisoned.

He said: “I informed the Russian embassy on behalf of Mr Milosevic about his claims that his health was being wilfully destroyed, and that this should be (investigated) by the Russians.”

Mr Tomanovic told reporters at The Hague that he had now filed an official request to the tribunal for the autopsy to be carried out in Moscow.

The tribunal was due to resume again on Tuesday to hear evidence from the next defence witness. But Milosevic’s family said prosecutors and judges were to blame for his death because they refused to allow him to visit Russia for specialist treatment.

His older brother, Borislav Milosevic, said in Moscow: “All responsibility for this lies on the shoulders of the international tribunal. He asked for treatment several months ago, they knew this. They drove him to this as they didn’t want to let him out alive.”

Milosevic’s death comes less than a week after the star witness in his trial, disgraced ex-Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, committed suicide in the same prison. Babic was serving a 13-year prison sentence and testified against Milosevic in 2002.

A tribunal spokesman said Milosevic had previously been classified as a suicide risk by the trial authorities, and it was not clear why his death went unnoticed until a guard raised the alarm at around 8am. All inmates at the UN detention centre in Scheveningen are meant to be checked every half an hour.

A spokesman for the specially-convened UN tribunal at The Hague said he was thought to have died from “natural causes”, although a full investigation would be carried out.

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