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Non-prescribed drug found in Milosevic
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-13 21:17
A Dutch toxicologist confirmed Monday that he found traces of a
non-prescribed drug in a blood sample taken from former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic earlier this year.
Donald Uges said he was asked to examine the sample after Milosevic's blood
pressure failed to respond to medication given by doctors at the U.N. detention
center near The Hague, where he was being held during his war crimes trial.
Uges said he found traces of rifampicin, a drug that could have reduced the
effectiveness of his other medications.
Milosevic, 64, had a history of heart problems and high blood pressure, and
took medications to treat those conditions.
A legal aide to Milosevic, meanwhile, said Monday that the late Serb leader
would be buried in Belgrade, in a funeral that could provoke tumultuous scenes
in the capital that he ruled for 13 years before he was extradited to stand
trial.
Zdenko Tomanovic said Milosevic's remains will be claimed by his son Marko
either Monday or Tuesday, even though Marko is under an international arrest
warrant requested by the authorities in Belgrade.
Tomanovic said the Belgrade funeral was the wishes of the family, but it was
unclear if Serb authorities will approve of the planned burial.
"I have just submitted information to the government of Serbia that the
funeral will be in Belgrade, that this is the wish of (the) Milosevic family,"
Tomanovic told reporters at the U.N. tribunal where Milosevic had been on trial
for more than four years.
Milosevic was found lifeless on his prison bed Saturday morning, just hours
after writing an accusatory letter alleging that a "heavy drug" had been found
in his bloodstream.
The allegations in what amounted to Milosevic's deathbed letter put the
tribunal and U.N. prosecutors on the defensive about whether they had given
Milosevic the medical treatment he needed and whether they had conducted the
trial properly and effectively.
The tribunal on Sunday said a heart attack killed Milosevic, according to
preliminary findings from Dutch pathologists who conducted a nearly eight-hour
autopsy on the former Yugoslav leader.
A tribunal spokeswoman said it was too early to determine if poison could
have caused the heart attack, saying a final autopsy report would be released in
coming days.
The chief U.N. prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said suicide could not be ruled
out. She spoke before the autopsy results were available.
Tomanovic, said the ex-president feared he was being poisoned. He showed
reporters a six-page letter Milosevic wrote to Russian officials Friday 錕斤拷 the
day before his death 錕斤拷 claiming that traces of an antibiotic he had never
knowingly taken had been found in his blood.
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday confirmed that Milosevic's aides
handed the letter to the Russian Embassy in the Netherlands on Saturday.
Tomanovic said Milosevic was "seriously concerned" he was being poisoned.
"They would like to poison me," he quoted Milosevic as telling him.
He cited a Jan. 12 Dutch medical report which showed traces of medication
used against leprosy and tuberculosis, but said Milosevic had never knowingly
taken them.
Uges, whom the tribunal asked to confirm the findings in a test in February,
said that he found the same antibiotic Milosevic's blood weeks later.
Milosevic had appealed to the war crimes tribunal last December to be allowed
to go to a heart clinic in Moscow for treatment. The request was denied. He
repeated the request as late as last month.
Tribunal President Fausto Pocar said he ordered the autopsy and a
toxicological examination after a Dutch coroner was unable Saturday to establish
the cause of death. Serbia sent a pathologist to observe the autopsy at the
Netherlands Forensic Institute.
Del Ponte said claims that Milosevic committed suicide or was poisoned were
"just rumors" so far.
"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 when he died.
But a Milosevic associate who said he spoke to him Friday described Milosevic
as defiant hours before his death.
"He told me, 'Don't you worry: They will not destroy me or break me. I shall
defeat them all,'" Milorad Vucelic, a Socialist Party official, said Saturday in
Belgrade.
Milosevic's family, meanwhile, argued over where to bury him.
His brother, Borislav Milosevic, 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 ex-leader's wife, Mirjana Markovic, and their son, Marko are
wanted on international arrest warrants for abuse of power, and could be taken
into custody if they return to Serbia for a funeral. They want Milosevic buried
in Moscow, where they live, Beta said.
Milosevic's daughter, Marija, said he should be buried in Montenegro, in
their family grave in Lijeva Rijeka, north of the capital, Podgorica. "He's not
a Russian to be buried in Moscow," she told Beta, adding that she would not
attend a Moscow funeral.
Milosevic was arrested in 2001 and put on trial in February 2002 on 66 counts
for war crimes and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during Yugoslavia's
violent breakup in the 1990s. He was the first sitting head of state indicted
for war crimes.
But his health problems repeatedly delayed the proceedings, which cost an
estimated $200 million and were due to wrap up this summer. Milosevic suffered
from heart trouble and chronic high blood pressure, worsened by the stress of
conducting his own defense.
Milosevic was the sixth war crimes suspect from the Balkans to die at The
Hague. A week earlier, convicted former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, a star
prosecution witness in the Milosevic trial, killed himself in the same prison.
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