[BRIEF NOTE] Milosevic is dead
Mar. 11th, 2006 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldVia Reuters:
I won't weep at his passing. It would have been convenient if he had died after the trial had been completed and the verdict delivered, not before. The former Yugoslavia needs catharsis.
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has died, the UN tribunal said on Saturday, just months before his war crimes trial was expected to conclude.
"Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell at the United Nations detention unit," the tribunal said in a statement.
"The guard immediately alerted the detention unit officer in command and the medical officer. The latter confirmed that Slobodan Milosevic was dead."
The tribunal said the Dutch police and a Dutch coroner were called in and started an inquiry. A full autopsy and toxicological examination have been ordered. Milosevic's family has been informed, it added.
The tribunal did not say how Milosevic had died. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told Reuters Milosevic had died of natural causes.
Milosevic, 64, suffered a heart condition and high blood pressure which had repeatedly interrupted his trial in The Hague on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Two cardiologists treating Milosevic in The Hague had warned he was at risk of a potentially life threatening condition known as a hypertensive emergency, when surges in blood pressure can damage the heart, kidneys and central nervous system.
I won't weep at his passing. It would have been convenient if he had died after the trial had been completed and the verdict delivered, not before. The former Yugoslavia needs catharsis.
