Autopsy: Heart Attack Killed Milosevic

Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack in his jail cell, according to preliminary findings from Dutch pathologists who conducted a nearly eight-hour autopsy on the former Yugoslav president Sunday, the U.N. war crimes tribunal said.

The tribunal released a statement saying it had received "a brief summary of the autopsy results. According to the pathologists, Slobodan Milosevic's cause of death was a 'myocardial infarction'."

The statement came after a day of speculation on the cause of death that swirled from ill health to suicide to poison.

Earlier, the chief U.N. prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, had said claims that Milosevic committed suicide or was poisoned were "just rumors."

"You have the choice between normal, natural death and suicide," she told reporters at the tribunal, where Milosevic had been standing trial for more than four years on 66 counts of war crimes and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during Yugoslavia's violent breakup in the 1990s.

Found dead in his cell Saturday morning, Milosevic, 64, had suffered from heart ailments and high blood pressure, and his bad health caused numerous breaks in his four-year, $200 million trial.

Milosevic's legal adviser said the former president had feared he was being poisoned. He showed reporters a six-page letter Milosevic wrote Friday — the day before his death — claiming that traces of a "heavy drug" were found in his blood. The letter was addressed to the Russian Embassy asking for help.

Zdenko Tomanovic said Milosevic was "seriously concerned" he was being poisoned. "'They would like to poison me,"' he quoted Milosevic as telling him.

A Dutch news report, citing an unidentified "adviser" to the U.N. war crimes tribunal, said traces of a drug used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis had been found in a blood sample taken from Milosevic in recent months.

Tribunal spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov said she could not comment on the report.

The report by Dutch state broadcaster NOS did not identify the source further. Nor did it name the drug found "in a test done in recent months," but said it could have had a "neutralizing effect" on Milosevic's other medications.

Doctors found traces of the drug when they were searching for an answer to why Milosevic's medication for high blood pressure was not working, the report said.

Milosevic had appealed to the war crimes tribunal last December to be allowed to go to a heart clinic in Moscow for treatment. The request was denied. He repeated the request as late as last month.

Milosevic underwent frequent medical examinations by doctors and specialists appointed by the tribunal and by Serb doctors brought at his own request. Detailed reports were routinely submitted to the judges.

Tribunal President Fausto Pocar said he ordered the autopsy and a toxicological examination after a Dutch coroner was unable to establish the cause of death on Saturday. Serbia sent a pathologist to observe the autopsy at the Netherlands Forensic Institute.

A Milosevic associate who said he spoke to him Friday described the former Yugoslav president as defiant hours before his death.

"He told me, 'Don't you worry: They will not destroy me or break me. I shall defeat them all,"' Milorad Vucelic, a Socialist Party official, said Saturday in Belgrade.

Milosevic's body was to be delivered to his family by Monday, Rasim Ljajic, Serbia-Montenegro's human rights minister, said in The Hague. The tribunal confirmed the body would be released Monday, but the family has yet to decide where to bury Milosevic.

His brother, Borislav Milosevic, suggested to Serbia's Beta news agency that he should be buried "in his own country, as he's a son of Serbia."

But the former president's wife, Mirjana Markovic, and their son, Marko, are wanted on international warrants for abuse of power, and could be arrested if they return to Serbia for a funeral. They want Milosevic buried in Russia, where they live, Beta said.

Milosevic's daughter, Marija, said he should be buried in the family grave in Montenegro. "He's not a Russian to be buried in Moscow," she told Beta, adding that she would not attend a Moscow funeral.

The family has blamed the death on the U.N. tribunal, which refused Milosevic's request to go to Russia.

Milosevic was arrested in 2001 and put on trial in February 2002, the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes.

But his health problems repeatedly delayed the proceedings, which were due to end this year. Milosevic suffered from heart trouble and chronic high blood pressure, worsened by the stress of conducting his own defense.

His death means there will be no judicial verdict for the man who became known in the West as the "Butcher of the Balkans."

"It is a great pity for justice that the trial will not be completed and no verdict will be rendered," Del Ponte said. His death "deprives victims of the justice they need and deserve."

Milosevic's death may mark the end an era of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk.

"But there are still serious divisions in the former Yugoslavian republics," Falk said. "And some victims in Bosnia and Kosovo feel cheated by the lack of a verdict against Milosevic in the war crimes trial."

Kasim Qerkezi, a Kosovo Albanian whose 18-year-old son was killed during a 1999 crackdown by Serb forces, was bitter.

"He was like a snake that always slips away," he said. "He died without paying back a fraction of what he owed to all of us."

In Milosevic's hometown of Pozarevac, Sreten Zivanovic pointed to scar above his eyebrow — a "souvenir" from Milosevic's regime. "He used brutal force against his own people just as he did against others," he said.

"It's all over now. He ruled our lives for too long," Jelena Ostojic, 34, said wearily. "He lived by the sword and died in his sleep."

Milosevic is the sixth war crimes suspect from the Balkans to die at The Hague. A week earlier, convicted former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, a star prosecution witness in the Milosevic trial, killed himself in the same prison.

Del Ponte said attention must now turn to capturing fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.