Milosevic's Death Denies Justice

In his homeland, Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic's supporters hailed their late leader as a Serb hero driven to an early death by the U.N. war crimes tribunal. In the rest of the Balkans, victims of Milosevic's warmongering said some justice was served with his death while in U.N. detention.

"Milosevic's death may mark the end an era of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, but there are still serious divisions in the former Yugoslavian republics," says CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, "and some victims in Bosnia and Kosovo feel cheated by the lack of a verdict against Milosevic in the war crimes trial."

In Kosovo, Veton Surroi, an ethnic Albanian leader who testified against Milosevic at his trial in The Hague, said he regretted Milosevic did not live longer.

"I wish he lived 100 years and spent all those years in prison living with the memory of all the victims caused by his wars," he said.

"Finally, we have some reason to smile. God is fair," said Hajra Catic, who leads an association of women who lost their loved ones in the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims by Serb troops in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica.

Milosevic's death abruptly ends one of history's most important trials. After four years, hundreds of witnesses, tens of thousands of documents and millions of dollars, Milosevic can never be judged guilty or innocent.

The trial's premature conclusion also raises questions about the conduct of the case by the trial judges who made key decisions that led to an exhausting, expensive and ultimately wasteful five-year process.

"That's $200 million down the drain," U.S. law professor Michael Scharf said.

Without a defendant, "the proceedings will be terminated," said tribunal spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov. Case closed.

Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart trouble and high blood pressure, was found dead in bed at the detention center. He apparently died of natural causes, a tribunal press officer said.

Officials and citizens of Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo also expressed regret that the former Yugoslav and Serbian president did not live to be convicted and sentenced for genocide and the other war crimes listed in his tribunal indictment.

But the president of the Serb-held part of Bosnia, Dragan Cavic, said a "historic person has left the scene, a person who was disputed, criticized and praised."

"This is an end to an era, but what has not ended is the court case, and that will have its consequences," Cavic added. "We'll never get the answer from The Hague of his guilt or innocence."

"The war crimes trials in the Hague sent a chilling message to dictators that they cannot escape a day of reckoning," says Falk, "but many believe that justice delayed was justice denied since trial was into its fifth year and the former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, who was scheduled to testify against Milosevic, committed suicide last week."

Liberals and Milosevic's opponents in Serbia agreed, but Milosevic's nationalist supporters were quick to portray him as the victim of a Western conspiracy, blaming the U.N. court and its alleged poor care of Milosevic in the detention, for his death.

"Milosevic did not die in The Hague; he was killed in The Hague," declared Ivica Dacic, a senior official in Milosevic's Socialist Party.

Tomislav Nikolic, a Milosevic aide and the leader of an increasingly popular nationalist Serbian Radical Party, added that "direct blame" for Milosevic's death lies with the U.N. court. "They knew very well that he was ill."

Nikolic's party later said in a statement that "nothing will be the same" in Serbia.

Serbia-Montenegro President Svetozar Marovic said in a statement that Milosevic's death presented a "huge moral challenge" for the U.N. court. Marovic added that "with his death, history will be deprived of full truth."

Serbian broadcasters interrupted their programs Saturday to report news of the death, and state-run television aired only classical music between newscasts.

Some citizens seemed bewildered by the news.

"I don't know what to think. I hated him but this will turn him into a martyr," said Bogdan Curcic, a 35-year-old engineer.

Ljiljana Simovic, 77, however, had no dilemma: "This is definitely good news: Now we got rid of him once and for all."

Azer Kurtovic, a 43-year-old mechanical engineer from the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, compared Milosevic's death to Adolf Hitler's suicide at the end of World War II.

"That's not fair," he said. "Evil men like them should pay for their deeds."

According to the schedule dictated by the court, he had only a few weeks to go before winding up his defense and handing over the massive case to the three judges to begin their deliberations.

The repercussions for the tribunal itself will be huge. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was created in 1993 to try those responsible for atrocities during the Balkan wars raging then. It was the first experiment in international war crimes jurisprudence since World War II, and was the model for the creation of more tribunals.

The possibility of his death before the trial's conclusion was the trial judges' nightmare. With his history of chronic heart problems, frequent attacks of flu, late nights preparing his defense and the stress of the courtroom, Milosevic was always at high risk.

"Milosevic came from Belgrade with a heart problem, so they knew from the beginning they would have this problem. The problem was, it was impossible to change course part way through" and still be fair to both sides, said Heikelina Verrijn Stuart, a Dutch lawyer who has closely followed the trial.

Last year, the judges suggested splitting up the Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo cases so that at least one could be completed quickly.

Both Milosevic and the prosecutors objected, and the idea was dropped.

The judges also imposed a court-appointed legal team for Milosevic. Sensing his spotlight in history and the chance to grandstand for his home audience in Serbia, he refused to even speak to the two British attorneys. Ultimately, they withdrew.

In hindsight, the legal experts said, the judges made a series of mistakes. They should not have allowed an ailing man to defend himself, they should not have agreed to join the three indictments into a single case, and they should not have isolated Milosevic from other defendants facing the same charges.

If there had been others in the dock, the case would have continued.

Milosevic "ended up cheating history. One of main purposes of the tribunal was to create a historic record of atrocities and of who was responsible that would pierce years of propaganda," said Scharf.

The testimony and much of the records in the Milosevic case are still available to prosecutors to use in other war crimes trials and for scholars of the Balkans. More than 70 defendants are currently in court proceedings.