NETHERLANDS: A Dutch toxicologist who tested the blood of Slobodan Milosevic before his death has confirmed it contained an unprescribed drug called Rifampicin that negated the effects of other medication to reduce his high blood pressure.
Milosevic supporters claim the former president was poisoned with the drug, but the Dutch expert said he may have taken it deliberately in the hope of a "one way ticket to Moscow" for treatment, and escape for good the war crimes tribunal in the Hague.
"He took Rifampicin himself, not for suicide, only for his trip to Moscow . . . where his friends and family are," said Donald Uges, a Dutch toxicologist who two weeks ago examined blood samples taken from Milosevic in mid-January.
"He wasn't taking his medicine, then he was forced to take it under supervision and when his blood pressure still didn't come down, his camp said, 'He should go to Russia'."
Mr Milosevic's wife and son live in exile in Moscow, but the tribunal rejected the travel request for treatment in Moscow last month, saying Milosevic was receiving adequate medical treatment in the Hague and expressed fears that he would flee.
In a letter written hours before his death, Mr Milosevic complained that he had never taken the drug, normally used to treat tuberculosis and leprosy, and said he suspected he was being poisoned.
Mr Milosevic (64) was facing 66 counts of war crimes and genocide in the Balkans in the 1990s, but his poor health delayed progress in the trial, in which he was defending himself.
He was diagnosed with high blood pressure and hypertrophic heart disease, which causes heart muscle to thicken, and prescribed drugs.
When UN-appointed doctors noticed last November that his blood pressure was not dropping, they concluded he was not taking his medication and he was ordered to do so under supervision. Now Dutch doctors believe he may have been taking the blood pressure medication, but negating its effect with Rifampicin.
Whether or not the drug was found in Milosevic's blood after his death will depend on whether he was stopped from taking the drug after the toxicology report two weeks ago, said Mr Uges.
Dutch media reported yesterday that unprescribed medication had been found last January in Milosevic's cell. Guards found his lifeless body in his cell bed on Saturday morning.
Sunday's post-mortem concluded that Milosevic died of heart failure, but a tribunal spokeswoman said yesterday it was unclear when the toxicology tests with possible causes of the heart attack would be completed.
Marko Milosevic was expected to fly into the Hague last night to collect the body of his father and fly with the body to Belgrade, said Mr Zdenko Tomanovic, Milosevic's former legal assistant.
Mr Tomanovic said he lodged a request with a court in Belgrade for outstanding arrest warrants against the Milosevic family to be waived to allow them travel to Serbia for the funeral.
He repeated his poisoning allegations yesterday and accused the tribunal of swamping Milosevic with over one million pages of "relevant and irrelevant documents". Mr Tomanovic claimed this had had a serious effect on Milosevic's health.
Two Russian doctors will arrive to examine the body this morning while, across town, the tribunal will meet for what may be its last sitting, after 466 trial days, with just 50 days to go.
"Under tribunal rules of procedure, the proceedings are halted immediately if a detainee dies in custody," said a tribunal spokeswoman.
She added that it was unlikely that any information from the four-year trial would find its way out of the tribunal in any form.