Supporters Pay Respects To Milosevic

Slobodan Milosevic's flag-draped coffin went on public display Thursday for hundreds of tearful supporters paying their last respects to the late Serbian leader who died while being tried for war crimes.

A large framed color photograph of Milosevic was placed in front of the casket inside Belgrade's Museum of Revolution, a gallery once devoted to former Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito.

Milosevic died March 11 at a U.N. detention center in the Netherlands near the war crimes tribunal that was trying him on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Meanwhile, the U.N. war crimes tribunal on Thursday ordered the release of confidential trial records about the late Yugoslav president to investigators probing his death in detention.

Milosevic will be buried Saturday in the grounds of the family estate in the industrial town of Pozarevac, about 30 miles southeast of Belgrade.

Reflecting the controversy about Milosevic's legacy, Serbia's government has refused to hold a state ceremony, leaving it to his family and his Socialist allies to organize the funeral.

The Hague tribunal said the documents had been kept sealed to protect Milosevic's privacy, but the judges decided to make them available to Dutch authorities and to an internal inquiry by the tribunal for the sake of "unimpeded access" to information about his health.

Milosevic, who was 64, died Saturday while on trial for war crimes, including genocide, during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. The trial, lasting more than four years, was repeatedly interrupted because of his poor health.

Milosevic's followers, most of whom were elderly, stood in silence along the cobblestone path leading to the museum entrance. Some sobbed quietly; many clutched red roses — the symbol of Milosevic's Socialist Party.

Milivoje Zivkovic, 81, limped his way up to the museum with a cane to pay tribute to "the man who loved his country more than any other Serb."

"It is insane that such a Serb hero, the best of all, is gone," said Mirko Lekic, 62, a chef who said he "cried like a baby" when Milosevic's death was announced.

Milorad Vucelic, the Socialist Party deputy president who organized Thursday's viewing, said he expected Milosevic's widow, Mirjana Markovic, to arrive Friday from Moscow. Markovic, who lives in Russia in self-imposed exile, has indicated she would not come until all charges against her for alleged abuse of power during Milosevic's reign were dropped.

Milosevic's brother, Borislav, will not attend because he is recovering from heart surgery in Russia, according to Russian news agencies.

Dutch pathologists who conducted an extensive post-mortem on Sunday said in a preliminary report that he died of a heart attack.

A spokeswoman for The Hague prosecutor's office, Suzanne Staals, said no further investigation has been under way since the autopsy, but the case could be reopened if warranted by the results of a toxicological report that is still pending.

It was unclear how much of the record will be made public. The judges ordered that the documents remain confidential unless "the interests of the Dutch authorities' inquest and the tribunal's inquiry dictate otherwise."

Blood samples taken from Milosevic earlier this year disclosed traces of a powerful antibiotic that was not in the medication prescribed by the tribunal's cardiologist, and could have blunted the effect of the beta-blockers he was taking to control his high blood pressure.

Tribunal officials and medical experts said Milosevic may have taken the drugs to bolster his demand to be released for treatment in a cardiac clinic in Moscow — a request his judges repeatedly refused.

The subject of Milosevic's health came up frequently during the course of the trial. Detailed medical reports often were discussed in closed session, but occasionally surfaced in the open.

After the Socialists were refused permission to display Milosevic's coffin at several other more prominent locations, including the downtown federal parliament building, the Socialists opted for the Museum of Revolution.

The decaying building in Belgrade's plush Dedinje district used to hold numerous gifts Tito received from foreign statesmen during his iron-fisted rule of ex-Yugoslavia from World War II until his death in 1981. It has been closed for years due to a lack of visitors.

The museum is only a few hundred yards from Tito's grave and from Milosevic's old residence, where he was arrested on April 1, 2001, before his extradition to The Hague tribunal two months later.