Milosevic's Body Returned To Family

Slobodan Milosevic's son, who claims his father was murdered, took possession of his remains Tuesday.

A green minibus, escorted by three police motorcycle outriders, took the corpse from the Netherlands Forensic Institute. The body was being driven toward Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, where a morgue is located nearby.

The family lawyer, Zdenko Tomanovic, and Milorad Vucelic, vice-president of the Socialist Party of Serbia, said the burial would be held in Serbia — an announcement that appeared to end a day of confusion over whether Milosevic's funeral would be in Belgrade or in Moscow, where his son and widow, Mirjana Markovic, live.

Milosevic and the family lawyer, Zdenko Tomanovic, spent more than one hour at the forensic institute, leaving several hours before the corpse was taken away.

A team of Russian forensic experts also was in The Hague to inspect the results of the autopsy on Milosevic, but were not conducting a second post-mortem.

Earlier Tuesday Milosevic's son alleged that his father had been "killed. "He didn't die. He got killed. There's a murder," Marko Milosevic said on arriving in Amsterdam for the short drive to The Hague.

Meanwhile a U.N. war crimes tribunal official said the court had been told the late Serb leader had regular access to unprescribed medication and alcohol smuggled into his prison cell.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the tribunal's strict confidentiality rules, told The Associated Press that the unit's prison warden had told the court that he could no longer guarantee Milosevic's health.

The official said prison authorities repeatedly found banned material in his cell, including alcohol and unprescribed drugs.

The prison warden, Timothy McFadden, refused interview requests and U.N. tribunal spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov said the court could not comment "because the investigation into Milosevic's death is ongoing."

The tribunal official, who has access to confidential documents on Milosevic's medication use, said two doctors concluded that the former Serb leader was intentionally taking drugs that undermined the prescribed medication for his heart ailment.

Milosevic, who was defending himself against 66 counts of war crimes, was allowed to work in a private office where he could meet privately with witnesses and legal advisers, making it impossible to monitor material they may have smuggled in to him, the official said.

A Dutch toxicologist, Donald Uges, said on Monday that blood tests he conducted on samples taken from Milosevic earlier this year uncovered traces of a drug used to treat leprosy or tuberculosis that would neutralize the effects of the beta-blockers Milosevic was taking to control his blood pressure.

The official said other doctors had found similar results in their tests.

U.N. prosecutors complained as early as 2004 that Milosevic was defying his regime of prescribed medication and taking other drugs to manipulate his health to his advantage during the court proceedings. The trial was repeatedly interrupted at critical points because of the defendant's ill health.

Milosevic, the Serbian strongman who presided over four Balkan wars and the breakup of Yugoslavia that cost some 250,000 lives, died of a heart attack, according to preliminary autopsy findings.

The results of a toxicological examination during the autopsy on Milosevic were due to be released in the coming days, said tribunal spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov.

In Courtroom 1 at the tribunal building, meanwhile, the case against Milosevic was declared closed on Tuesday.

Judge Patrick Robinson, who repeatedly clashed with the combative defendant over four years, said the Milosevic's "untimely passing ... terminates these proceedings." A formal order closing the file would be issued shortly, he said.

The two-minute hearing brought an abrupt end to the most important war crimes trial in 60 years, in a case that was meant to establish political responsibility for the worst crimes known to man, genocide.

It was still unclear where Milosevic would be taken for burial. The family requested a state funeral in Belgrade, though a ceremony with state honors was unlikely to be granted since it could become a rallying point for nationalists and Milosevic loyalists.

A Belgrade court said Tuesday that an arrest warrant for Slobodan Milosevic's wife had been suspended, leading to a possible Belgrade funeral.

The court said Mirjana Markovic "will remain free and will not be taken into custody" after her lawyers deposited a bond worth $17,000 guaranteeing she would appear in court at a hearing that has not yet been scheduled.

Markovic left Serbia in February 2003 to join her son, Marko, in Russia, and an Interpol arrest warrant was issued against her the same month over a real estate scandal. It was briefly revoked and later reinstated after Markovic failed to appear in court in September 2005.

But, the court said, "on her arrival in the country, the defendant's passport will be impounded."

Markovic has said she would return to Serbia only if the arrest warrant was lifted.

But she has also indicated in recent interviews with Belgrade media that she had plans to return to Russia after the burial. The impounding of her passport would prevent her from leaving Serbia.

On Monday, Marko Milosevic raised the possibility of a temporary burial in Russia if the Serb government banned a Belgrade funeral.

Milosevic was 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 against Milosevic, killed himself in the same prison.