| Return to
opening page |
. |
|
Milosevic ConcernsWhatever way one considers it, the surprise demise of Milosevic leaves many problems. Whether or not he committed suicide, there will still be those that will believe he was murdered – too many he will in time become their martyr. As facts emerge and given the perspective of time it may be possible to be more definitive as to the consequences of his death – in the meantime the articles below encapsulate some of our current queries.Natural causes, suicide or..? Milosevic blood showed he took wrong drugs Milosevic deserved justice No verdict and still questions See also Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack, that's the conclusion of the autopsy carried out by the Netherlands Forensic Institute. However, a toxicological investigation has yet to establish whether Mr Milosevic may have caused his own death or whether there may have been problems with his medical treatment. The first claims that Mr Milosevic may not have died from natural causes were expressed by his lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic. Speaking shortly after news broke of the former president's death on Saturday, he said Mr Milosevic had been 'systematically destroyed' while in the UN jail. He claimed his client had been given medicines normally used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis, neither of which he suffered from. A medical examination carried out on Mr Milosevic at the request of the tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in November last year, showed that the TB medicine may have caused substances to be present in his blood which neutralised the effect of the medicine he was receiving to lower his blood pressure. This was discovered by a pharmacologist in The Hague. Second opinion Mr Milosevic's lawyers rejected that investigation and demanded a second opinion, which was carried out in January this year by Professor Donald Uges, an expert in clinical and forensic toxicology. He discovered the presence of Rifampicine in Mr Milosevic's blood, a medicine which is used to treat TB. This drug could have been the reason why Mr Milosevic's blood pressure didn't fall, though Professor Uges says no-one thought the TB medicine could be to blame because it is scarcely used in the Netherlands. The professor says, "If Milosevic took this medicine himself, he must have known what the effect would be. That requires pharmacological knowledge, which he probably got from other people." The results of the examination, showing that Rifampicine had been found in Mr Milosevic's blood, were received by the ICTY on 5 March. Mr Milosevic was also given the report, after which he perhaps stopped taking Rifampicine. Professor Uges believes this could have also caused his death, because an abrupt end to taking the medicine could lead to a dramatic drop in blood pressure. Monitored It had already been discovered that Mr Milosevic was not taking his medicine as prescribed. He was even reprimanded by the ICTY for not taking prescribed drugs regularly and, after that came to light, was then constantly monitored to make sure he did take them. Mr Milosevic began to complain about his health in November 2005, later demanding that he should be treated in Moscow because he didn't trust the doctors in the Netherlands. He was also reported as having told his lawyer that he had the idea he was being poisoned. Never answered There are many questions which will probably never be answered, such as did Mr Milosevic take those medicines himself or were they administered by someone else? Then there is the question of whether the ICTY is in any way to blame regarding the medical treatment of Mr Milosevic? Was its reaction sufficient when it became know that strange substances had been found in his blood? Might it have been possible to prevent his death? The questions about his death are bound to remain and are likely to damage the reputation of the tribunal. It's even possible that this may have been Mr Milosevic's intention. If that were indeed the case, then it would have been his ultimate revenge against the court who's authority he steadfastly he refused to acknowledge. Sebastiaan Gottlieb
13-03-2006
Slobodan Milosevic's body will be buried in Belgrade, it has been revealed, amid claims that the former dictator deliberately sabotaged his own heart medication in the hope of escaping The Hague. Donald Uges, a Dutch toxicologist, examined the Yugoslavian president's blood for the United Nations. His tests, conducted two weeks ago, revealed traces of rifampicin - a leprosy and tuberculosis drug that would have made other medicines ineffective. Prof Uges said he believed Milosevic, who was found dead in his cell at The Hague on Saturday, took drugs to cancel out his blood pressure treatment and improve his case for going to Russia, where his wife and son live. "I don't think he took his medicines for suicide - only for his trip to Moscow," said Prof Uges. "That is where his friends and family are. I think that was his last possibility to escape The Hague." "I am so sure there is no murder," he added. A preliminary post mortem report yesterday showed the former Yugoslavian president died of a heart attack but speculation has continued over his death. Yesterday Milosevic's lawyer said he feared he was being poisoned, but a UN spokeswoman said it was too early to say whether the heart attack might have been caused by poisoning or whether suicide could be ruled out. Milosevic was facing a possible life sentence over charges genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo throughout the 1990s. The drugs allegations came as The Hague released the former dictator's body. Milosevic, who was 64, will be buried in Belgrade according to his family's wishes, but will not receive a state funeral, Serbian authorities said. Milosevic's lawyer said his remains will be claimed by his son Marko on Monday or Tuesday, although authorities in Belgrade have issued an international arrest warrant for Marko. Had it happened anywhere else, commentators would be outraged. If a defendant had died after five years in custody, without having been found guilty of anything, we should complain that he had not received justice. Yet, for some reason, those who hold forth most warmly against, say, the internment of terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay seem to have no problem with the farcical proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague. This newspaper was no friend to Slobodan Milosevic or his Communist regime. We were, indeed, among the most enthusiastic supporters of military action against Serb forces. But there should have been evidence enough to try him in Serbia or, failing that, to extradite him to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Either option would have preserved the principle of territorial jurisdiction: that is, the notion that offences are the responsibility of the state where they are alleged to have taken place. It is not as though whisking Milosevic out of Yugoslavia resulted in a fairer trial. On the contrary, we have had four years of tendentious statements and hearsay evidence, while the accused, who had wanted to conduct his own defence, had a counsel imposed on him by the judges. The expansion of international jurisdiction has come upon us suddenly. Until recently, international law was confined to such questions as maritime rights and the status of diplomats. Yet, all of a sudden, we live in a world where Colin Powell will not travel to Germany, where Israeli soldiers will not disembark in Europe, where General Pinochet can be arraigned in Britain on a Spanish warrant for crimes alleged to have taken place in Chile. The 300-year-old precept that law-makers should be directly accountable to their peoples has been abandoned. Instead, power is passing to a caste of human rights lawyers whose legitimacy derives chiefly from their own moral certainties, and who are able to use international law to impose norms that would not pass through elected national parliaments. Milosevic was a bad man; but bad men still deserve justice. That he did not get it in The Hague reflects badly on us all. The death of Slobodan Milosevic has dealt a huge blow to the tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague. After four years of a gruelling trial, constantly interrupted by Mr Milosevic's ill health, a verdict will now never be reached. Mr Milosevic was by far the most important figure captured and tried by the tribunal and his case set a precedent in international law. But by allowing the former president to defend himself, the tribunal was turned into something of a farce, with proceedings often descending into angry exchanges between judge and defendant or Mr Milosevic giving the court a lesson in the history of Yugoslavia - as seen through the eyes of an ultra-Serb nationalist who believed entirely in his own innocence. Victims The death of Mr Milosevic is an added tragedy for the families of those lost in the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Without a verdict, there are still questions about the true scale of their former leader's crimes. Janet Anderson, head of the International Justice Program at the Institute of War and Peace Reporting in The Hague says it's a frustrating end to proceedings: "People will always consider that it [the tribunal] has done a reasonable job, but whether they will think that at the end of the day they got all of the answers that are needed about what happened in the former Yugoslavia, with a stamp to say, guilty, not guilty… that, I think, will be the issue." Genocide Slobodan Milosevic had been on trial in The Hague since February 2002 and faced 60 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. As well as those charges, he was also accused of genocide relating to the Bosnian war and in particular the massacre at Srebrenica during which 7,500 Muslim men died. With Mr Milosevic dead, the tribunal is likely to intensify its calls to Serbian authorities to arrest former Yugoslavia's other main warmongers, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. Resentment Janet Anderson says the problem is that there is still a lot of resentment in Belgrade about the existence of the tribunal: "I think there's a very strong move to bring Mladic to the tribunal. At the moment the problem with Karadzic is that nobody seems to know exactly where he is. But I would be surprised if we saw Mladic here in the very short term, as was starting to be expected, because I think the death of Milosevic casts a pall over the tribunal and the authorities in Belgrade will not want to be seen to be cooperating so strongly with the tribunal at such a sensitive time." Claire Cavanagh 13-03-2006
See also: Slobodan Milosevic The Hague Tribunal Srebrenica massacre Prosecuting the most serious crimes War crimes trials in the dock Lord Paddy Ashdown - hard act to follow Mladic fate a mystery as Serbia faces EU axe The Holocaust Holocaust denial International criminal justice Mixed reactions in Belgrade |
||
| meditations |
top |
|