Milosevic's body to be flown to Serbia for burial
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-15 19:43

The body of Slobodan Milosevic will be flown to Belgrade on Wednesday for burial, almost five years after the former Yugoslav president was sent to The Hague to stand trial for war crimes.

A memorial notice which reads: 'farewell to our fellow fighter in The Hague Slobodan Milosevic' from fellow war crimes suspects on trial at the U.N. tribunal, published in Belgrade newspapers, March 14, 2006. [Reuters]

The remains of Milosevic, who died of a heart attack in jail just months before an expected verdict, were expected to arrive in Belgrade in the afternoon as questions persisted over what killed him -- natural causes, poisoning or suicide.

But his widow Mira Markovic, dubbed "Lady Macbeth" for her powerful influence on her husband, looked set to stay behind in Moscow because she would face a court hearing and confiscation of her passport if she returns to Serbia.

Milosevic will be buried in his hometown of Pozarevac, 80 km (50 miles) east of Belgrade, Uros Suvakovic, a senior official of his Socialist Party, said on Wednesday.

"The funeral will be in Pozarevac on Saturday," he said.

A Russian doctor sent from Moscow to check the results of the Dutch autopsy said on Wednesday he was satisfied Milosevic died of a heart attack but said he could have been saved if he had been allowed to travel to Moscow for specialist treatment.

Belgrade has refused a state funeral for Milosevic, who is revered as a hero by ultranationalists but widely blamed in the West for the wars that tore Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s.

His admirers say the funeral will be a major national event whatever its official status, despite Belgrade's rejection of a burial in the "Avenue of Heroes" in the city's main cemetery.

Sergei Baburin, Deputy Speaker of Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament, said Mira Markovic would not travel to Belgrade for her husband's funeral.

"It is of course monstrous that the current leadership of Serbia and Montenegro have not provided the appropriate level of safety for the wife of the late President Slobodan Milosevic," Baburin told Russia's state-run RTR television station.

"She decided let the funeral go ahead as it is. Even if they do not let her in, her husband must return."

ABUSE OF POWER

Elected Serbian president in 1990 on a wave of Serb nationalism, Milosevic was ousted in 2000 after public protests following a decade of war. He was arrested and sent to The Hague in 2001 as Belgrade turned westwards.

His death has increased pressure on Serbia to arrest Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, like Milosevic both accused of genocide by the U.N. tribunal, as a price of progress on European Union membership.

A Serbian court said Mira Markovic, who fled to Moscow in 2003 to avoid charges of abuse of power, would not be arrested if she returned home but her passport would be confiscated.

Son Marko Milosevic, who flew to the Netherlands from Russia on Tuesday, had said he would consider a Moscow funeral if it was not safe for his mother to travel to Serbia.

Milosevic's family has accused the U.N. tribunal in The Hague of murdering the former Serb strongman by refusing his request to travel to Russia for medical treatment.

Milosevic's lawyer said his client wrote a letter to Russia a day before he died saying he feared he was being poisoned.

Moscow had expressed distrust of the Dutch investigation and sent a team of doctors to check the autopsy results.

Leo Bokeria, a director at Moscow's Bakulev Heart Surgery Center where Milosevic wanted to go for treatment, told Reuters he agreed with the conclusion that Milosevic had died of a heart attack but said treatment in Russia could have saved him.

"If the patient was investigated enough ... he would have still been alive today," he said.

Toxicology test results are due this week to determine the cause of the heart attack that killed Milosevic.

A Dutch expert said blood tests taken just weeks before Milosevic died suggested the 64-year-old, faced with a possible life sentence if convicted, had knowingly taken harmful medicines to bolster his case to go to Russia for treatment.

A lawyer for Milosevic denied this theory: "The lies are that he was taking medicine that was not prescribed to him."

Tribunal documents showed that Hague doctors expressed concerns as early as 2004 that Milosevic was taking unprescribed medicine that must have been smuggled into the jail.

Milosevic had his own office to prepare his defense case where he could meet with his legal advisers and witnesses in private, a tribunal spokeswoman said.

On Tuesday, the U.N. tribunal formally closed the case against Milosevic on 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

(With additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in The Hague)