Milosevic May Have Tried to Get to Moscow
By ANTHONY DEUTSCH
ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -
0312dv-milosevic-autopsy A Dutch toxicologist suggested Monday that Slobodan Milosevic may have taken an unprescribed drug to worsen his health so he could be released from jail and get medical attention in Russia, where his wife and son live in exile.
Toxicologist Donald Uges told The Associated Press he found traces of the drug rifampicin in the former Yugoslav leader's blood earlier this year. Uges said the drug "makes the liver extremely active" and may have reduced the effectiveness of the other drugs Milosevic was taking.
Milosevic, 64, was found dead in his jail cell Saturday. He had a history of heart problems and high blood pressure, which caused numerous breaks in his four-year trial before the U.N. war crimes tribunal. The tribunal said Sunday that an autopsy showed Milosevic died of a heart attack.
Uges said that Milosevic may have taken the drug in an effort to portray his Dutch doctors as unable to treat his condition. The late leader's wife, Mirjana Markovic, and their son, Marko, live in Moscow.
"First he wasn't taking his medicine," Uges said. "Then he was forced to take it under supervision, and his blood pressure still didn't come down. So his camp said, 'You see? These Dutch doctors don't know how to treat him, and he should go to Russia."
Russia, for its part, was skeptical about the autopsy performed on Milosevic, and wants to send its own doctor to examine the body, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday. Lavrov also repeated Russia's criticism of the U.N. war crimes tribunal for refusing to allow Milosevic to travel to Moscow for treatment. Lavrov said Moscow was "disturbed" by that decision.
"It cannot fail to alarm us that Milosevic died shortly afterward," he added.
Doctors who examined Milosevic at the detention center diagnosed him as having hypertension, or high blood pressure, and hypertrophic heart disease, a thickening of the heart muscle.
U.N.-appointed doctors examined Milosevic last November and initially concluded he had been refusing to take his prescribed medicine, since the blood pressure was not responding. Under the judges' orders, Milosevic was then required to take his medicine under supervision, but his blood pressure didn't come down, Uges said.
He said the Dutch doctors concluded after a Jan. 12 examination that the most likely explanation was that Milosevic was taking another drug that counteracted his blood pressure medication.
Milosevic, who asked the court in December to be released to travel to Russia for treatment, contested the doctors' opinion, and the court asked Uges to conduct a more sophisticated test.
Uges said he conducted the tests two weeks ago on a sample taken earlier this year. But he said his investigation - performed initially without knowledge of who the patient was - confirmed the doctors' earlier findings.
He said the results of the toxicological tests during the post-mortem would determine whether the traces were still in Milosevic's blood at the time of death.
On Feb. 24, judges denied Milosevic's request to be released to go to Moscow. Even after Russia guaranteed it would send Milosevic back to The Hague, judges were "not satisfied ... that the accused, if released, would return for the continuation of his trial," presiding Judge Patrick Robinson said at the time.
"Essentially, they didn't believe Russia," Lavrov said Monday. "In a situation where we weren't believed, we also have the right not to believe and not to trust those who are conducting this autopsy."
Rifampicin, an antibiotic, is usually used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis. It is sold under various trade names, most commonly as Rifadin. It is known for causing liver problems, and for increasing the metabolism - or processing - of many drugs through the liver.
Uges said he couldn't disclose details of Milosevic's routine medicines, but said they contained a cocktail of drugs commonly used to treat heart disease, including the class of drugs that lower blood pressure known as "beta blockers."
Milosevic had a history of clashing with the court over his treatment. In a September 2004 decision relating to Milosevic's refusal to accept a court-appointed lawyer, judges mentioned that Dutch doctors suspected he was tampering with his medication.
