Translated material
Sentenced to death
The Hague Tribunal has lost its main accused
On Saturday, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, 64, was found dead in a holding cell at Scheveningen Prison. This means that a few months before the end, the most ambitious trial in post-war history on charges of crimes against humanity against the head of a sovereign European state was interrupted. A court verdict regarding the most controversial figure in Balkan history at the end of the 20th century will never be rendered. But two mutually exclusive myths will live in the memory of the Serbs and their neighbors in the region for a long time. The bright appearance of Slobo, the “defender of ordinary Serbs”, tortured in a foreign dungeon, will inspire nationalists. And their democratic opponents will remember with shudder the “Balkan butcher” who flooded the once prosperous lands of the former Yugoslavia with blood.Slobodan Milosevic appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in February 2002. Six months earlier, he was secretly extradited to The Hague by the authorities of his own country, who vainly hoped to receive Western financial assistance and membership in the European Union in return. The ex-president was accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in 1991-1999 in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. The chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, Carla Del Ponte, promised to complete the protracted process this summer.
Milosevic's death cannot be called unexpected. The defendant was ill and persistently asked for quality medical care. However, at the end of February, the Trial Chamber of the Hague Tribunal refused to temporarily release Slobodan Milosevic for treatment in Moscow at the Bakulev Scientific Center for Cardiovascular Surgery. As noted in a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry, “Russian doctors were ready to provide him with appropriate assistance, and the Russian authorities guaranteed the fulfillment of all the necessary requirements of the ICTY in this regard.” During the trial, the tribunal interrupted hearings 22 times due to the poor health of the accused. But nevertheless, the Trial Chamber decided that the defendant receives qualified medical care in full in The Hague.
On Saturday, the body of the former leader of Yugoslavia was examined by Dutch forensic experts. They were unable to visually determine the cause of death. It is noteworthy that the autopsy took place in the presence of not only two Serbian pathologists, but also the Minister of Serbia and Montenegro for Human Rights and National Minorities, Rasim Ljajic, who hastily arrived from Belgrade. It is known that Slobodan Milosevic suffered from coronary heart disease and hypertension.
Carla Del Ponte yesterday called for refraining from hasty conclusions and even admitted the possibility of Milosevic's suicide. According to her, it is necessary to wait for the results of not only the autopsy, but also the toxicological examination; “the final conclusions of the pathological examination” will be known “within a week.” She commented briefly on the fact of the death of her main captive: “Six and a half years of hard work - all in vain.”
Yesterday, unconfirmed information emerged about a letter that Mr. Milosevic allegedly sent the day before his death to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In it, he shared his suspicions about a strange deterioration in his health. As the deceased's legal adviser, Zdenko Tomanovic, told reporters, Milosevic complained that he was being given powerful drugs, as if he had "leprosy or tuberculosis." Earlier, Slobodan Milosevic's brother Borislav said in an interview with Vremya Novostey that the Hague Tribunal was "manipulating medical reports."
Despite the possible absence of a criminal trace in the death of Slobodan Milosevic, the director of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences Konstantin Nikiforov, is convinced that the death of the former Yugoslav leader should be considered violent. In a conversation with Vremya Novostei, he emphasized that “a person who had not even been convicted yet was simply starved to death, kept locked up, and not given adequate treatment.” Our interlocutor notes that the activities of the Hague Tribunal from the very beginning were accompanied by various violations, including the fact that it was created in 1993 by decision of the UN Security Council, although such decisions should be made by the General Assembly. As for the Milosevic case itself, his accusation arose during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. “One warring party brought charges against the other warring party, and then, having won a victory, judges it,” the expert notes.
Slobodan Milosevic is the largest figure among the Balkan politicians who died in the dungeons of the Hague Tribunal. In 1998, Serb Slavko Dokmanovich, the former head of the administration of the Croatian city of Vukovar, committed suicide in a pre-trial detention cell in Scheveningen prison. And just a week ago, on March 5, the ex-president of the self-proclaimed republic of Serbian Krajina, Milan Babic, lost his life. According to the official version, he hanged himself. In 2004, Babich was sentenced to 13 years in prison. During the trial, this once very radical leader of the Croatian Serbs made a deal with the Hague Tribunal, agreeing to testify against Milosevic in exchange for the removal of the most serious charge of genocide.
“With the exception of a few crazy politicians, who will now dare to cooperate with the Hague Tribunal?” - said the head of the Serbian Radical Party Tomislav Nikolic yesterday. These words were a reaction to Ms. Del Ponte's assertion that she now expects Serbia even more than before to arrest and transfer to The Hague ex-Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Both are wanted while they manage to hide from raids by NATO forces and Bosnian intelligence services.
Most Western leaders greeted the news of Slobodan Milosevic's death with muted satisfaction. Former American emissary to the Balkans Richard Holbrooke admitted that he would not shed a tear about this. German Foreign Ministers Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Austrian counterpart Ursula Plassnik called the deceased a “man of the past.” The head of German diplomacy said that the former Yugoslav leader was “guilty of many casualties and armed conflicts.” NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called the death of the ex-president an “unfortunate coincidence of circumstances.”
The European Union's High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Spaniard Javier Solana, went the furthest, declaring that the passing of Slobodan Milosevic "will help Serbia overcome the past and turn with us to the future." The vice-president of the Russian Academy of Geopolitical Problems, General Leonid Ivashov, reacted to these words, personally testifying at the Hague Tribunal in defense of the ex-leader of Yugoslavia. The statements of the EU representative and ex-NATO Secretary General, according to him, are nothing more than “crocodile tears and empty chatter”; Where Serbia will turn now is not the business of Mr. Solana, but of the Serbian people.
Where will the ex-president of Yugoslavia be buried? There were disagreements in the family of the deceased on this issue. Slobo was born in the Serbian city of Pozarevac. Widow Mirjana Markovic and son Marko, who live in Moscow, proposed holding a sad ceremony in the Russian capital. Both have been charged with abuse of power and financial crimes in Serbia. The office of Serbian President Boris Tadic said yesterday that Mirjana and Marko still should not count on an amnesty if they come to Belgrade. Borislav Milosevic, who lives in Moscow, believes that his brother should be buried on Serbian territory. Daughter Maria, who lives in Montenegro, insists on a funeral in this Adriatic republic, in the family cemetery in the village of Lieva Rijeka.
The Milosevic family moved to Pozarevac shortly before Slobodan was born, said Konstantin Nikiforov. According to him, “the elder brother Borislav was born in Montenegro, and he was recorded as a Montenegrin, and Slobo, who was born in Pozarevac, was already recorded as a Serb.” The main Belgrade New Cemetery has the Avenue of Heroes, where leading Serbian statesmen are buried. However, Mr. Nikiforov doubts that the current Serbian authorities will agree to bury Slobodan Milosevic there.