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Milosevic Toxicology report expected as family due in Serbia
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-03-17 14:56
An eagerly awaited report into whether any poisons were present in the body
of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic when he died was expected to be
released as the former strongman's family was due to arrive in Serbia ahead of
his funeral.
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| Senior officials of the hardline Serbian Radical party Vojislav
Seselj(R) and his wife(L) stand as a guard of honor around the coffin of
late former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the Museum of
Revolution in Belgrade. An eagerly awaited report into whether any poisons
were present in Milosevic's body when he died was expected to be released
as the former strongman's family was due to arrive in Serbia ahead of his
funeral. [AFP] |
The UN war crimes tribunal will hold a press conference at noon (1100 GMT)
where it is expected to release a toxicological analysis done by the Netherlands
Forensic Institute (NFI) in conjunction with the autopsy it carried out last
Sunday. The NFI identified the immediate cause of death as a heart attack but
did not say what brought it on.
Many of Milosevic's supporters, notably in his native Serbia and in Russia,
voiced suspicions that his sudden death in the custody of the UN war crimes
court a week ago was the result of poisoning.
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) suspect instead that Milosevic took a fatal gamble by secretly using a
drug that he knew would counter the medication he was taking for his heart
condition.
They think Milosevic deliberately compromised his health in the hope of
obtaining permission to seek treatment in Russia where he could possibly find
shelter and never return to The Hague.
The powerful antibiotic rifampicin, which is known to counter the effects of
other medications, was found in Milosevic's blood in recent months.
Dutch toxicologist Donald Uges, who carried out blood tests on behalf of
Milosevic's Dutch doctors to find out why he was not responding to blood
pressure medication, alleged Monday that he took the drug "because he wanted a
one-way ticket to Moscow."
Even if the toxicological analysis confirms the presence of rifampicin, or
any other suspicious substance, the question will remain as to how the drug got
into Milosevic's system.
Dutch authorities have opened a formal inquest into the death, and the ICTY
is conducting an internal investigation.
The ICTY ordered Thursday that both probes will have full access to all
documents pertaining to Milosevic's death including confidential medical
records.
The widow of the former strongman, Mira Markovic, and their son Marko were
expected to return Friday to the former Yugoslav republic for the first time in
years before he is laid to rest in the grounds of his family home on Saturday,
his Socialist party said.
Milosevic's supporters are expected to continue paying their respects to his
body, which went on show Thursday at Belgrade's communist-era Revolution Museum.
On the first day of Belgrade tributes, however, the turnout was a far cry
from the tens of thousands that used to gather at Milosevic rallies during his
heyday in the 1990s.
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