THE HAGUE, 12 March 2006 — Slobodan Milosevic — branded the “butcher of the Balkans” for the killing of Muslims and Croats in the 1990s — was found dead in his cell yesterday, just months before his trial was expected to conclude.
“Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell,” the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague said in a statement.
The court said a medical officer confirmed that the 64-year-old former Yugoslav president — who suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure — was dead, adding the Dutch police and a coroner had launched an inquiry.
A tribunal spokeswoman said there was no indication Milosevic had committed suicide. She said the trial — which has already lasted four years — would end now he was dead.
Milosevic was charged with 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo as he sought to carve out a “Greater Serbia” as Yugoslavia broke up in the 1990s. He dismissed the trial and refused to plead.
The charges against him included involvement in the siege of Sarajevo during the 1992-95 Bosnia War and the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in the UN “safe haven” of Srebrenica, Europe’s worst single atrocity since World War II.
Milosevic’s ill health had repeatedly interrupted his trial that started in February 2002 and had been expected to end this year. Last month, the court rejected Milosevic’s bid to go to Russia for medical treatment, noting the trial was almost over.
His was the second death at the detention center within a week after former rebel Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic committed suicide on March 5. A former ally of Milosevic already convicted for war crimes, Babic was a key witness against the former Yugoslav president.
The Russian Foreign Ministry implicitly criticized the UN tribunal. “As is well known, Milosevic in connection with his worsening health requested medical treatment in Russia,” a ministry statement said. “Unfortunately, despite our guarantees, the tribunal did not agree to provide Milosevic the possibility of treatment in Russia,” the ministry said.
It added that Russia expected to be informed about the circumstances of Milosevic’s death.
Hours after the tribunal’s announcement of his death, Milosevic’s lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic said the former Yugoslav leader feared he was being poisoned in his detention cell in The Hague.
“Today, I have filed an official request to the tribunal to have the autopsy carried out in Moscow, having in mind his claims yesterday that he was being poisoned in the jail,” Tomanovic told reporters in The Hague.
Acting on a request from Milosevic, Tomanovic said he had made a request for protection for his client to the Russian Embassy in The Netherlands and to the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow.
The tribunal promptly rejected his request for an autopsy in Moscow instead of in The Hague.
It was Europe’s most significant war crimes trial since top Nazis were tried in Nuremberg. Milosevic’s death will raise questions over supervision at the detention center and stoke criticism that the proceedings were too long and the charges too unwieldy compared with the one-year life of Nuremberg.
Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor, told Swiss television Milosevic’s death had come as the trial was almost finished and, based on the evidence, he would have been convicted.
“It is regrettable for all witnesses, for all survivors, for all victims who are expecting justice,” she said.
The war crimes prosecutor called for the arrest of the remaining six fugitives of the UN war crimes court, especially Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
“I wish he could have paid for what he did to my innocent son, to my wife and my daughter,” said Kasim Cerkezi, a Kosovo Albanian who lost six members of his family in a Serb assault on the western town of Djakovica in March 1999. “His punishment could not bring back my son, but it would be a drop of satisfaction in a sea of pain.”
Croatia said it was sorry that Milosevic had died in prison before being sentenced for his role in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. “It’s a pity that Milosevic did not live through the trial and get his deserved sentence,” President Stjepan Mesic’s office said in a brief statement.
Richard Holbrooke, the former US negotiator for the ex-Yugoslavia, told CNN he would not shed any tears for Milosevic, whom he called a “sociopath.” “I spent more time with Milosevic probably than any other Westerner; I’m not going to shed any tears for him.
“He was a communist opportunist and became an opportunistic nationalist. His actions led to the deaths of over 300,000 people, four wars, the instability in Europe, creation of criminal gangs... he was never going to see daylight again and that was appropriate and now he’s gone,” Holbrooke added.
Milosevic’s death, as his life, only generated feelings of disdain, anger and frustration among Saudis. The general reaction to the news of his death is a mixture of indifference over the passing of a terrorist and butcher and of dissatisfaction over escaping justice.
“It was another holocaust in Europe and the Europeans had to do something to appease the call for vengeance among the Bosnians for all what they suffered under Milosevic’s regime, and the least they could do is put him on trial for war crimes,” said Sadig Malki, professor of political science at King Abdul Aziz University. “Now even that little has vanished.”
Thurayya Al-Araiydh, a writer and adviser at Aramco, called Milosevic another thug who came to power and stayed in power by committing crimes against humanity just like Sharon. “He’s not the only one who came to power stepping over the skulls of others. He reminds me of Sharon and Begin and Saddam. That’s why I don’t like this selectiveness in applying justice. They should all be brought to justice,” she said.
— Additional input from Maha Akeel
