Russians
to redo Milosevic autopsy
TUESDAY,
MARCH 14, 2006
THE HAGUE
The lawyer for Slobodan Milosevic said Monday that a team of Russian doctors
would arrive in the Netherlands on Tuesday to repeat the autopsy that was
performed Sunday on the former Serbian president.
The body of Milosevic, who was found dead in the detention center early Saturday, is still at the Netherlands Forensic Institute in The Hague but is now available to be claimed by his family.
Milosevic's lawyer, Zdenko Tomanovic, said that the Russian medical team would be headed by Leo Bokeria, director of Moscow's Bakulev cardiovascular center, and that a doctor at the center examined Milosevic at the United Nations detention center last year.
Tomanovic said Milosevic had been sending reports of his medical condition to Russia for at least two years. According to the lawyer, the Russian doctors concluded that his medical treatment was not "in accordance with their views."
Milosevic's son, Marko, was to arrive in the Netherlands on Tuesday. The institute could not be reached to say how it would react to a second autopsy, but that decision rests with the family.
Until then, the lawyer said, the family has taken action to move the body to Belgrade, where Milosevic's funeral is to take place. It would entail a gathering of nationalists and supporters of the former president that has not been seen in more than five years.
Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal, staunchly defended Milosevic's medical treatment. "Milosevic had the best medical care you can imagine," she said in an interview, adding that she had a folder of medical reports and surveillance that began in March 2002 and continued until this month.
"So many doctors were looking at him all the time," del Ponte said, "I was confident that if there was one person who we should not worry about it was him. Nothing was overlooked. Every small detail was attended to."
When she learned of his death, del Ponte said, "my first reaction was that what happened was something he had wanted to do himself. His heart stopped, but why?"
But the Russians were doubtful of that explanation. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said in Moscow that the tribunal had refused offers of assistance for Milosevic. "Since they did not believe us, we also have the right not to believe and not to trust those performing the post-mortem examinations," he said.
In Serbia, government officials paved the way for the funeral and burial in Belgrade, which they hoped would be private and quiet.
Government officials said that a warrant for the arrest of Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, would be rescinded, enabling her and her family to attend what a senior government official insisted would be a private ceremony.
Markovic had been wanted by a court in Belgrade after she failed to appear at a hearing to face fraud charges last year. The underlying charge, of fraud related to an apartment sale, still hangs over her, in theory.
She is believed to have been living in Moscow for three years, during much of the time when her husband stood trial in The Hague on charges of committing war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990s.
The timing of the funeral was not announced. Despite the government's wishes for a quiet private ceremony, nationalists and supporters of the former president are certain to seize on it as a chance to rally.
Members of Milosevic's Socialist Party appeared to be seizing the opportunity to revive its flagging poll ratings and plan a mass gathering of supporters. The party was once the largest party in Serbia, and now commands just over 5 percent of the vote.
Serbia's ultranationalist Radical party, currently the most popular political party in Serbia, was also expected to ask its supporters to attend, party officials said.
"I believe that first he has to be placed somewhere so people have a couple of days to express their respects, and then a large funeral," said Vladimir Krsljanin, a former foreign relations adviser to Milosevic. "There will be foreign delegations and speeches and so on."
He added that the government needed to provide for the kind of ceremony the former president deserved.
"Such a large gathering of people and emotions can turn into something else, if the government doesn't show maturity," Krsljanin said. "You cannot act against the masses."
Deputy Prime Minister Mirosljub Labus told regional news stations that the government had informed the Milosevic family that it would allow the family to enter the country for "a private funeral."
According to the independent news agency Beta, an assistant prosecutor in Belgrade, Mira Ilic, said the state prosecution service had asked that a detention order for Markovic be annulled by the county court.
The court was expected to make its decision Tuesday morning.
At the same time, pressure grew among Milosevic's supporters for a further investigation into his death and, more specifically, into a report that a drug normally prescribed for tuberculosis had been the found in his blood.
A Russian general, Leonid Ivashov, who visited Milosevic in prison at The Hague and testified on his behalf, said in Moscow: "I suspect that one of the reasons the tribunal did not allow his trip to Russia was because in Moscow, they would discover what drugs he had been given by the prison doctors, and they were afraid of being exposed."
In Belgrade, Milosevic's supporters appeared already to have come to the conclusion that their former leader had been murdered.
Outside the headquarters of the Socialist Party in Belgrade, many party members lining up in the rain to sign a book of condolences had no doubts he had been poisoned.
"They slipped it into his food," said Gjorgje Stejic, a 51-year-old machine engineer. "I am sure he was killed. That's what all of us think."
Kolja Tanakovic, a 74-year-old retired high school teacher, said: "They didn't have the evidence to convict him and so they murdered him. "
Marlise Simons of The New York Times reported from The Hague. Nicholas Wood of the International Herald Tribune reported from Belgrade. Alexander Nurnberg of The New York Times contributed from Moscow.
The body of Milosevic, who was found dead in the detention center early Saturday, is still at the Netherlands Forensic Institute in The Hague but is now available to be claimed by his family.
Milosevic's lawyer, Zdenko Tomanovic, said that the Russian medical team would be headed by Leo Bokeria, director of Moscow's Bakulev cardiovascular center, and that a doctor at the center examined Milosevic at the United Nations detention center last year.
Tomanovic said Milosevic had been sending reports of his medical condition to Russia for at least two years. According to the lawyer, the Russian doctors concluded that his medical treatment was not "in accordance with their views."
Milosevic's son, Marko, was to arrive in the Netherlands on Tuesday. The institute could not be reached to say how it would react to a second autopsy, but that decision rests with the family.
Until then, the lawyer said, the family has taken action to move the body to Belgrade, where Milosevic's funeral is to take place. It would entail a gathering of nationalists and supporters of the former president that has not been seen in more than five years.
Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal, staunchly defended Milosevic's medical treatment. "Milosevic had the best medical care you can imagine," she said in an interview, adding that she had a folder of medical reports and surveillance that began in March 2002 and continued until this month.
"So many doctors were looking at him all the time," del Ponte said, "I was confident that if there was one person who we should not worry about it was him. Nothing was overlooked. Every small detail was attended to."
When she learned of his death, del Ponte said, "my first reaction was that what happened was something he had wanted to do himself. His heart stopped, but why?"
But the Russians were doubtful of that explanation. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said in Moscow that the tribunal had refused offers of assistance for Milosevic. "Since they did not believe us, we also have the right not to believe and not to trust those performing the post-mortem examinations," he said.
In Serbia, government officials paved the way for the funeral and burial in Belgrade, which they hoped would be private and quiet.
Government officials said that a warrant for the arrest of Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, would be rescinded, enabling her and her family to attend what a senior government official insisted would be a private ceremony.
Markovic had been wanted by a court in Belgrade after she failed to appear at a hearing to face fraud charges last year. The underlying charge, of fraud related to an apartment sale, still hangs over her, in theory.
She is believed to have been living in Moscow for three years, during much of the time when her husband stood trial in The Hague on charges of committing war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990s.
The timing of the funeral was not announced. Despite the government's wishes for a quiet private ceremony, nationalists and supporters of the former president are certain to seize on it as a chance to rally.
Members of Milosevic's Socialist Party appeared to be seizing the opportunity to revive its flagging poll ratings and plan a mass gathering of supporters. The party was once the largest party in Serbia, and now commands just over 5 percent of the vote.
Serbia's ultranationalist Radical party, currently the most popular political party in Serbia, was also expected to ask its supporters to attend, party officials said.
"I believe that first he has to be placed somewhere so people have a couple of days to express their respects, and then a large funeral," said Vladimir Krsljanin, a former foreign relations adviser to Milosevic. "There will be foreign delegations and speeches and so on."
He added that the government needed to provide for the kind of ceremony the former president deserved.
"Such a large gathering of people and emotions can turn into something else, if the government doesn't show maturity," Krsljanin said. "You cannot act against the masses."
Deputy Prime Minister Mirosljub Labus told regional news stations that the government had informed the Milosevic family that it would allow the family to enter the country for "a private funeral."
According to the independent news agency Beta, an assistant prosecutor in Belgrade, Mira Ilic, said the state prosecution service had asked that a detention order for Markovic be annulled by the county court.
The court was expected to make its decision Tuesday morning.
At the same time, pressure grew among Milosevic's supporters for a further investigation into his death and, more specifically, into a report that a drug normally prescribed for tuberculosis had been the found in his blood.
A Russian general, Leonid Ivashov, who visited Milosevic in prison at The Hague and testified on his behalf, said in Moscow: "I suspect that one of the reasons the tribunal did not allow his trip to Russia was because in Moscow, they would discover what drugs he had been given by the prison doctors, and they were afraid of being exposed."
In Belgrade, Milosevic's supporters appeared already to have come to the conclusion that their former leader had been murdered.
Outside the headquarters of the Socialist Party in Belgrade, many party members lining up in the rain to sign a book of condolences had no doubts he had been poisoned.
"They slipped it into his food," said Gjorgje Stejic, a 51-year-old machine engineer. "I am sure he was killed. That's what all of us think."
Kolja Tanakovic, a 74-year-old retired high school teacher, said: "They didn't have the evidence to convict him and so they murdered him. "
Marlise Simons of The New York Times reported from The Hague. Nicholas Wood of the International Herald Tribune reported from Belgrade. Alexander Nurnberg of The New York Times contributed from Moscow.
Milosevic
had been sending reports of his condition to Russia for at least two years.
