Slobodan Milosevic found dead in prison cell
Posted: Saturday, March 11th, 2006 1:57 pm
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been found dead in the detention centre at The Hague tribunal.
The tribunal said an autopsy would be conducted to establish cause of death, but there was no indication of suicide.
Zdenko Tomanovic, a lawyer for Mr Milosevic, says the autopsy should take place elsewhere as his client said he was being poisoned in the jail.
Mr Milosevic, 64, had been held at the UN war crimes tribunal for genocide and other war crimes since 2001. …
The BBC’s Geraldine Coughlan at The Hague says Mr Milosevic’s death is a blow to prosecutors, who had been hoping to convict him as being part of a joint criminal enterprise that operated across the former Yugoslavia, intent on setting up a greater Serbian state.
Mr Milosevic faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged central role in the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo during the 1990s.
He also faced genocide charges over the 1992-95 Bosnia war, in which 100,000 people died. … Read full obituary
