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 — the day before his death — 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.