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Milosevic's body to be flown to Serbia for burial
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-15 19:43
The body of Slobodan Milosevic will be flown to Belgrade on Wednesday for
burial, almost five years after the former Yugoslav president was sent to The
Hague to stand trial for war crimes.
A memorial notice which reads: 'farewell to
our fellow fighter in The Hague Slobodan Milosevic' from fellow war crimes
suspects on trial at the U.N. tribunal, published in Belgrade newspapers,
March 14, 2006. [Reuters] |
The remains of Milosevic, who died of a heart attack in jail just months
before an expected verdict, were expected to arrive in Belgrade in the afternoon
as questions persisted over what killed him -- natural causes, poisoning or
suicide.
But his widow Mira Markovic, dubbed "Lady Macbeth" for her powerful influence
on her husband, looked set to stay behind in Moscow because she would face a
court hearing and confiscation of her passport if she returns to Serbia.
Milosevic will be buried in his hometown of Pozarevac, 80 km (50 miles) east
of Belgrade, Uros Suvakovic, a senior official of his Socialist Party, said on
Wednesday.
"The funeral will be in Pozarevac on Saturday," he said.
A Russian doctor sent from Moscow to check the results of the Dutch autopsy
said on Wednesday he was satisfied Milosevic died of a heart attack but said he
could have been saved if he had been allowed to travel to Moscow for specialist
treatment.
Belgrade has refused a state funeral for Milosevic, who is revered as a hero
by ultranationalists but widely blamed in the West for the wars that tore
Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s.
His admirers say the funeral will be a major national event whatever its
official status, despite Belgrade's rejection of a burial in the "Avenue of
Heroes" in the city's main cemetery.
Sergei Baburin, Deputy Speaker of Russia's State Duma lower house of
parliament, said Mira Markovic would not travel to Belgrade for her husband's
funeral.
"It is of course monstrous that the current leadership of Serbia and
Montenegro have not provided the appropriate level of safety for the wife of the
late President Slobodan Milosevic," Baburin told Russia's state-run RTR
television station.
"She decided let the funeral go ahead as it is. Even if they do not let her
in, her husband must return."
ABUSE OF POWER
Elected Serbian president in 1990 on a wave of Serb nationalism, Milosevic
was ousted in 2000 after public protests following a decade of war. He was
arrested and sent to The Hague in 2001 as Belgrade turned westwards.
His death has increased pressure on Serbia to arrest Bosnian Serb leader
Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, like Milosevic both
accused of genocide by the U.N. tribunal, as a price of progress on European
Union membership.
A Serbian court said Mira Markovic, who fled to Moscow in 2003 to avoid
charges of abuse of power, would not be arrested if she returned home but her
passport would be confiscated.
Son Marko Milosevic, who flew to the Netherlands from Russia on Tuesday, had
said he would consider a Moscow funeral if it was not safe for his mother to
travel to Serbia.
Milosevic's family has accused the U.N. tribunal in The Hague of murdering
the former Serb strongman by refusing his request to travel to Russia for
medical treatment.
Milosevic's lawyer said his client wrote a letter to Russia a day before he
died saying he feared he was being poisoned.
Moscow had expressed distrust of the Dutch investigation and sent a team of
doctors to check the autopsy results.
Leo Bokeria, a director at Moscow's Bakulev Heart Surgery Center where
Milosevic wanted to go for treatment, told Reuters he agreed with the conclusion
that Milosevic had died of a heart attack but said treatment in Russia could
have saved him.
"If the patient was investigated enough ... he would have still been alive
today," he said.
Toxicology test results are due this week to determine the cause of the heart
attack that killed Milosevic.
A Dutch expert said blood tests taken just weeks before Milosevic died
suggested the 64-year-old, faced with a possible life sentence if convicted, had
knowingly taken harmful medicines to bolster his case to go to Russia for
treatment.
A lawyer for Milosevic denied this theory: "The lies are that he was taking
medicine that was not prescribed to him."
Tribunal documents showed that Hague doctors expressed concerns as early as
2004 that Milosevic was taking unprescribed medicine that must have been
smuggled into the jail.
Milosevic had his own office to prepare his defense case where he could meet
with his legal advisers and witnesses in private, a tribunal spokeswoman said.
On Tuesday, the U.N. tribunal formally closed the case against Milosevic on
66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia
and Kosovo.
(With additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in The Hague)
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