Milosevic Death: Chief UN War Crimes Prosecutor Carla del Ponte has described as "a great pity for justice" the sudden death in prison of Slobodan Milosevic, as Dutch coroners carried out a post-mortem yesterday to find out what killed the former Serbian president.
Ms del Ponte scorned claims that Milosevic (64) had been poisoned and urged the Serbian government to co-operate with the tribunal and hand over the Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitives Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.
"I too deeply regret the death of Slobodan Milosevic. It deprives the victims of the justice they need and deserve," she told a press conference at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague yesterday.
Mr Milosevic was handed over to the tribunal in 2001 and went on trial in February 2002 facing 66 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Balkans in the 1990s.
He had been on trial for 466 days, spread over fours years, but heart disease and high blood pressure had resulted in a slowing down of the trial. Further delays were caused by Mr Milosevic's decision to represent himself, and later disputes after the court appointed defence lawyers to assist him.
After 295 witness and more than 5,000 pieces of evidence, the trial was just 50 days from completion.
Ms del Ponte appeared to row back from her suggestion in an Italian newspaper interview that Mr Milosevic had committed suicide to evade justice.
Instead she suggested yesterday it was just a "possibility", following the suicide a week ago of former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic at the tribunal's detention centre.
Ms del Ponte rejected the suggestion that the trial had been too drawn-out, pointing out that the tribunal was looking at crimes over a 10-year period and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of victims in the former Yugoslavia.
"In my view it is not only a question of conviction and sentencing. It is also a question of truth, of facts," she said. "That is important for the victims, that they have full knowledge of what happened."
Although the Milosevic prosecution will now be wound down without a verdict, Ms del Ponte said the work of the tribunal was far from over.
Eight senior Serb figures will go on trial later this year in connection with the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995. Another six former Serbian leaders will go on trial this year in connection with crimes committed in Kosovo.
She disagreed that the death of Mr Milosevic would deter the surrender or arrest of the six outstanding fugitives sought by the tribunal.
"The most senior perpetrators are still at large. Now more than ever I expect Serbia to finally arrest and transfer Mladic and Karadzic to The Hague as soon as possible," she said, referring to the generals indicted a decade ago in connection with the Srebrenica massacre.
Two investigations have been launched after a prison guard discovered Mr Milosevic dead in his cell shortly after 9am on Saturday morning during a regular half-hour check. The tribunal has launched a full inquiry into the death, as have Dutch authorities.
A Dutch forensic team conducted an investigation of the cell yesterday and the tribunal issued a statement saying there were no outward signs of suicide or an unnatural death.
Dutch coroners were unable to immediately establish the cause of death and transferred the body to a state pathological clinic in Yppenburg, north of the city, late on Saturday evening.
The autopsy began there yesterday afternoon, witnessed by two coroners who flew in from Belgrade early yesterday morning and results are expected this morning. The Dutch autopsy was rejected by the Milosevic family who were understood to favour an examination in Russia, home to his widow and brother.