Milosevic's Death Leaves Questions

Milosevic's Death Leaves Questions

Autopsy Shows Milosevic Died of Heart Attack, Tribunal Says
By Marlise Simons
The New York Times

Sunday 12 March 2006

The Hague - The United Nations war crimes tribunal here said tonight that preliminary autopsy results showed that Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, had died of a heart attack. He was found dead in his cell on Saturday.

But the day after his death, speculation remained about what might have caused the heart attack. Mr. Milosevic, 64, was believed to have taken medicines not prescribed by his physicians, including an antibiotic known to diminish or halt the effect of the medicines he was taking for his heart and blood pressure problems.

The autopsy was performed by Dutch pathologists in The Hague and two pathologists from Belgrade, Serbia, attended the procedure. Their report identified "two heart conditions" that Mr. Milosevic suffered, which they said might explain the heart attack. A toxicological report will be available later this week, the tribunal said late today.

Lawyers close to Mr. Milosevic said the autopsy could reveal substances in his blood that might have contributed to his death. But the question remains: If so, how did they get there?

Mr. Milosevic, who was held responsible for almost a decade of Balkan warfare that killed more than 200,000, had been on trial here for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. During the trial, judges were told that he seemed to be manipulating his health. The proceedings were suspended more than 20 times.

While the war crimes tribunal has been embarrassed and thrown onto the defensive by Mr. Milosevic's death, officials were quick to dismiss suggestions earlier today that he might have been poisoned.

"He has a proven track record of taking unprescribed medicine, of messing with his medication," said Jean-Daniel Ruch, an adviser to the tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte. "I am not sure if we will know the full truth."

A report from a prison doctor on March 3 said blood samples from Mr. Milosevic showed traces of rifampicin, an antibiotic used to treat serious bacterial infections like tuberculosis and leprosy. The side effects of that antibiotic are known to change the effect of other medicines.

A member of Milosevic's legal team, Zdenko Tomanovic, said earlier today that Mr. Milosevic claimed in a letter dated March 10, the day before he died, that people with an interest in silencing him were trying to poison him. "I don't claim someone poisoned my client, I only claim he said he feared he was being poisoned," Mr. Tomanovic said.

He quoted Mr. Milosevic as saying, "I have never taken any antibiotic in five years."

Mr. Tomanovic also said Mr. Milosevice, in his letter, stated, "I am writing to you and asking you for help in protecting me from the criminal activities being perpetrated in the institution operating under the sign of the United Nations Organization."

Throughout his political career, and over more than four years of proceedings here in his war crimes trial, Mr. Milosevic cast himself in the classic Serbian mold of victim and martyr.

At a news conference earlier today, Ms. Del Ponte, the prosecutor, said that whether Mr. Milosevic took his own life was still an open question. She said she expected doubts to be clarified by the autopsy and toxicological tests, but she also repeated her regret that Mr. Milosevic had died just as his trial was coming close to an end.

"His crimes affected hundreds of thousands of people," she said, adding that "there were just 50 hours of hearings left" in the defense phase.

Ms. Del Ponte said the tribunal's attention would now turn to other war crimes cases, as well as the need to arrest other fugitives.

"Now more than ever, I expect Serbia to arrest and transfer Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic," she said, referring to the two former Bosnian Serb leaders who have been on the run since being indicted as war criminals in 1995. "The death of Slobodan Milosevic makes it even more urgent to bring them to justice."