Slobodan Milosevic found dead in his cell

[Dobbs 3K 0]

"From the AP:

 

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro - Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader on trial for alleged war crimes, was found dead in his prison cell at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Belgrade's B-92 and Serbia's state radio said Saturday. He was 65.

 

A U.N. war crimes prosecution official in the Dutch capital, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed the report to The Associated Press."

 

Good riddance to bad garbage, I say.

[Masked Man of Mystery 0]

One less scumbag in the world, I suppose. I wonder what or who killed him, though

[Sideburnious 0]

I'm surprised it took this long to happen.

[SuperJerk 0]

More of the story....

 

Milosevic found dead in cell

 

(CNN) -- Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been found dead in his cell in The Hague, Netherlands where he was being tried on war cimes charges, according to the United Nations war crimes tribunal. He was 64.

 

An official in the chief prosecutor's office said Milosevic was found at about 10 a.m. Saturday and that he apparently had been dead for several hours. An autopsy will be performed, the official said.

 

Milosevic rose to the top of Yugoslav politics in the power vacuum left by the 1980 death of post-World War Two Yugoslav dictator Marshal Tito.

 

Elected Serbian president in 1990, he ruled with an iron grip until his overthrow in 2000. He was transferred to the Hague in 2001 and went on trial the following year.

 

Referring to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Milosevic's widow, Mirjana, told CNN: "The tribunal has killed my husband."

 

Reacting to the death, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the many victims of the bloody Balkan wars should not be forgotten.

 

"With the death of Milosevic, one of the main actors if not the main actor in the Balkan wars of the late 20th century has left the scene.

 

"I would like to spare a thought for all those who suffered so much from ethnic cleansing, tens of thousands of men, women and children, which Milosevic conceived and planned."

 

The tribunal did not say how Milosevic had died but Douste-Blazy told reporters he died of natural causes.

 

"Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell at the United Nations detention unit," the U.N. 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 Dutch police and coroners were called in and started an inquiry.

 

The former Serbian president had been on trial on 66 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

 

Milosevic had suffered a heart condition and high blood pressure that had repeatedly interrupted his trial in the Hague.

 

The tribunal had recently rejected Milosevic's request to travel to Russia for specialist medical treatment, CNN's Christiane Amanpour reported. Milosevic had said he would appeal against the decision, saying his health was worsening.

 

CNN's Brent Sadler, who reported on the bloody Balkans wars of the 1990s, said there would now likely be an adverse backlash in Serbia as it grapples with huge international pressure to hand over alleged war criminals Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.

 

"Much of Milosevic's trial was transmitted on Serbian and international television and people there haven't been allowed to forget their former president.

 

"Politicians and the people were already split over war crime suspects and it is going to make the issue of the handover of Mladic and Karadzic even more divisive," Sadler said.

 

Milosevic's death comes a day before the third anniversary of the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

 

It also comes amid diplomatic efforts this year to determine the future of Kosovo, the disputed region of Serbia dominated by Albanians.

 

The United Nations has administered Kosovo since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization drove out Yugoslav troops in 1999 amid grave human rights abuses in the fighting between Serbs and Albanians.

 

Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo outnumber other ethnic groups, mainly Serbs, by about 9 to 1.

Ethnic strife

 

Milosevic's war crimes trial at the Hague had just entered its fifth year when he died.

 

The long legal proceeding was in its defense phase when it began, a marathon proceeding covering 66 counts involving war crimes from the Balkan conflict in the 1990s.

 

The counts included his role in the fighting in the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo and the civil warfare in Bosnia and Croatia after the breakup of Yugoslavia.

 

That country, a non-Warsaw Pact communist nation composed of six separate republics, raged with ethnic strife as it broke apart during the fall of communism.

 

One of many Balkan war crimes suspects who have been brought to The Hague, Milosevic was the best-known symbol and the most politically powerful, and authorities had been attempting to prove that he backed or even authorized violence by Serb forces.

 

He faced charges of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war, and genocide, an explosive charge emanating from the Bosnian conflict, in which tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims were killed or chased from their homes by Bosnian Serb forces.

 

In Srebrenica, about 8,000 males were killed, while Sarajevo was terrorized by a Bosnian-Serb-led siege. (Full story)

 

He pleaded not guilty to all counts and faced life in prison.

 

Milosevic had repeatedly said he was not responsible for ordering killings and rapes and was defending the Serbian people against terror.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/03/11...ovic/index.html

[Toshiaki Koala 0]

It would be a shame if that heart condition was what killed him. He deserved so much worse.

[Vampiro69 0]

I thought I heard that his trial was now in its 4th year. If that is true, how can a trial take that long?

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

Tons of testimony, tons of delays over his health, and due to the fact that when these trials occur they want to charge someone with HUNDREDS of offenses so it takes forever to get through all of the legal work. This is sort of why I detest international justice because it takes so long and after all of the years of legal work and cost to the world we don't even get a fitting conclusion for this guy. I know people might say that justice was achieved because he died in jail but I see this whole case as a sham of international justice first and foremost and think it has done a lot to hurt the International Court of Justice for the Ex-Yugoslavia in general.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Which makes for a good case of why the US shouldn't turn terrorists they capture over to the world court.

[Gary Floyd 0]

He will be mourned by no one.

[Red Baron 0]

He probably died from the food he ate, considering it was made from people and all.

[2GOLD 0]

Which makes for a good case of why the US shouldn't turn terrorists they capture over to the world court.

 

To be fair, he did die in a prison cell. Sorta works for me.

[Guest pedro_mendes]

RIP... he will be missed.

[Guest Dam(o)nYankees]

RIP... he will be missed.

...

[Jingus 0]

Milosevic himself didn't help speed his trial up any, as he constantly refused to cooperate even the slightest bit, constantly claiming that everything they said was a lie (even in the face of damning evidence) and saying that nobody in the world had the right or the authority to charge him with anything.

 

As to his death, I feel a Denis Leary quote coming on: "Oh well, whattafuckin'tragedy."

[Epic Reine 0]

I love how this is HUGE news in Europe but no one in American could care less. You should have seen how ocnfused some of my friends were when I told them about this.

[Anakin Flair 0]

He probably died from the food he ate, considering it was made from people and all.

 

They fed him Soylent Green?