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03/13/2006:

"Heart failure blamed but former Serb leader said doctors were killing him"

The death of Slobodan Milosevic was shrouded in mystery and deepening controversy last night as Dutch pathologists examined his corpse and it emerged that he had claimed he was being slowly killed by doctors.
Milosevic's body was removed from the detention centre at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague to the Netherlands forensic institute for a postmortem examination and toxicological testing.

Last night a preliminary postmortem report said that he had died of heart failure. His remains were to be released to his family today.


Yesterday the 64-year-old former Serbian and Yugoslav president's lawyer revealed a six-page letter - dated last Friday, 24 hours before his death - that Milosevic wrote to the Russian government alleging he was being deliberately administered the wrong drugs for his illnesses.
"Persons that are giving me the drug for the treatment of leprosy surely cannot be treating me. Especially those persons against whom I have defended my country in the war and who also have an interest in silencing me can likewise not be treating me," Milosevic said in a handwritten letter to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

Milosevic had a long history of heart disease, hypertension and high blood pressure. He was also found to be ignoring Dutch medical advice while on trial for the past four years and to be taking drugs other than those prescribed. His family has a history of suicide; his parents and a favourite uncle killed themselves.

Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor in The Hague, said yesterday that Milosevic, found dead in his cell on Saturday morning, might have killed himself. "According to our valuations, [the trial] would have ended with a verdict requesting he be shut away for life. Perhaps he wanted to avoid all that," Ms Del Ponte told the Italian paper, la Repubblica. But tribunal sources said the most likely explanation for his death was natural causes.

While Milosevic claimed in his letter that he was being deliberately administered the wrong medicine, he also has a record of taking unprescribed drugs and refusing treatment advised by his Dutch doctors.
guardian.co.uk