Saturday, March 11, 2006

BREAKING NEWS: MILOSEVIC FOUND DEAD AT THE HAGUE

(CNN) -- Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been found dead in his cell in The Hague, Netherlands where he was being tried on war cimes charges, according to the United Nations war crimes tribunal. He was 64.

An official in the chief prosecutor's office said Milosevic was found at about 10 a.m. Saturday and that he apparently had been dead for several hours. An autopsy will be performed, the official said.

Referring to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, his widow, Mirjana, told CNN: "The tribunal has killed my husband."

Reacting to the death, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the many victims of the bloody Balkan wars should not be forgotten. (Watch the bloody story of the Balkans wars)

"With the death of Milosevic, one of the main actors if not the main actor in the Balkan wars of the late 20th century has left the scene.

"I would like to spare a thought for all those who suffered so much from ethnic cleansing, tens of thousands of men, women and children, which Milosevic conceived and planned."

The tribunal did not say how Milosevic had died but Douste-Blazy told reporters he died of natural causes.

"Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell at the United Nations detention unit," the U.N. tribunal said in a statement.

"The guard immediately alerted the detention unit officer in command and the medical officer. The latter confirmed that Slobodan Milosevic was dead."

The tribunal said Dutch police and coroners were called in and started an inquiry.

The former Serbian president had been on trial since 2002 on 66 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

He had been held at the Hague since 2001 when he was transferred from the Serbian capital Belgrade following his overthrow in 2000.

Milosevic had suffered a heart condition and high blood pressure which had repeatedly interrupted his trial in the Hague.

The tribunal had recently rejected Milosevic's request to travel to Russia for specialist medical treatment, CNN's Christiane Amanpour reported. Milosevic had said he would appeal against the decision, saying his health was worsening.

CNN's Brent Sadler, who reported on the bloody Balkans wars of the 1990s, said there would now likely be an adverse backlash in Serbia as it grapples with huge international pressure to hand over alleged war criminals Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.

"Much of Milosevic's trial was transmitted on Serbian and international television and people there haven't been allowed to forget their former president.

"Politicians and the people were already split over war crime suspects and it is going to make the issue of the handover of Mladic and Karadzic even more divisive," Sadler said.

Ethnic strife

Milosevic's war crimes trial at the Hague had just entered its fifth year when he died.

The long legal proceeding was in its defense phase when it began, a marathon proceeding covering 66 counts involving war crimes from the Balkan conflict in the 1990s.

The counts included his role in the fighting in the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo and the civil warfare in Bosnia and Croatia after the breakup of Yugoslavia.

That country, a non-Warsaw Pact communist nation composed of six separate republics, raged with ethnic strife as it broke apart during the fall of communism.

One of many Balkan war crimes suspects who have been brought to The Hague, Milosevic was the best-known symbol and the most politically powerful, and authorities had been attempting to prove that he backed or even authorized violence by Serb forces.

He faced charges of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war, and genocide, an explosive charge emanating from the Bosnian conflict, in which tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims were killed or chased from their homes by Bosnian Serb forces.

In Srebrenica, about 8,000 males were killed, while Sarajevo was terrorized by a Bosnian-Serb-led siege.

He pleaded not guilty to all counts and faced life in prison.

Milosevic had repeatedly said he was not responsible for ordering killings and rapes and was defending the Serbian people against terror.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

A ti qenke burr i fortë more vlla?, po e krahazon rugoven me milloshin aa?..qka muti paske hanger ti, lej drogat vlla e mos ha mut ketu, qka je ti, naj fare goran muti qe te ardh dita me fol ketu a, njerzi pa shkoll bre nanen..gjithkuna ju eshtë jepur drejtja e fjalës.

Anonymous said...

he died as he lived, like a lonely killer bastard he was...

Anonymous said...

I agree Chris, me vjen keq shprejet ma heret por ksi lloj shkrimesh siq qendruan tek bloggeri i parë "theiliran" jan te turpshme pa pas ndonje prapavi politikë ne ket bisedë une mund te them qe edhe nese nuk jemi pajtuar me punen e rugoves ai kurr nuk i ke lagar doart me gjak dhe eshtë dhe ka qenë nje simpol i paqes, duke krahazuar atë me siq thirret "the butcher of the balkans" eshtë e diqka jashtzakonisht e gabushme!

Anonymous said...

I’m from Serbia and ashamed of it because of Milosevic...I hope he suffered like my people, the people of Yugoslavia...
Ironically, tomorrow is the 3rd year anniversary of Djindjic's assassination...
MILOSEVIC, burn in hell....you deserve it!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Death may be a blessing for him. (but it does make you hope there is an afterlife and a god just waiting for him to walk through the gates. Can you imagine the conversation? 'Hello Slobodan, sit down we have ever so much to discuss') However, this is a good opportunity for the Serbs to come to terms with the past and move forward. Will they? Probably not anytime soon.Too many of them still believe the propaganda. But one is hopeful that after this year when they are completely different state (no Kosova, no Montenegro, no EU) that they will really start thinking about what happened and what they really want to be when they finally grow up.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully the death of Milosevic will free Serbians, Kosovar Albanians and all the people of the Balkans who suffered from the near destruction of this beautiful part of the world. He is gone, at last, let us move on and say never again.

Anonymous said...

He definetly killed himself, sick bastard. He was mentally distrubed as the rest of his nation.

It going to be funnny seeing his burial. Only Russia will attend, others feel embarrased.

Is there any big party happening in Kosova?

Anonymous said...

This is not fair. He knew he would die since he was taking some not perscribed pills. This is the biggest defeat to all the innocent people...he should have rotted in that hole. Also guy from Serbia, Milosevic did nothing against your people, he was only completing the Serbian dream.

Hague supossively is the Court of the Whole WORLD while yet it can't keep people from committing suicide.

Anonymous said...

theilirian......

you really must be some eccentric homosexual imbecile with a brain the size of a peanut.........alternatively, you may well be too high on your drugs to know what you are thinking, let alone writing..........

i think you are the third musketeer missing to the two men you mentioned!

Anonymous said...

to theilirian,

You must have some Serbian blood in you, and you probably don't know it. I suggest you ask your mom. Please change your nick to cetnik it would look better on you. I don't recognize you for an Albanian, and I think very few will with that thinking of yours. FYI Speaking Albanian doesn't make you one.

Cheers,

The true Illyrian ;)

Anonymous said...

"I knew it wouldn't be long before he'd start missing his old bum-chum Rugova and now finally the two love birds are back together again"

Bizarre comment. However, there is certainly no doubt he has been missing his old chum Tudjman, with who he conspired and executed the partiton of Bosnia, and he's been missing him in heaven. And with his fellow war criminal and mass killer Ariel Sharon (he also cheered him on in '99) on the way out as well, he figures it was time for a match made in hell.

Anonymous said...

This is for the "theilirian"
That is quite the comment especially comming from an albanian (if that is what you are).
I assume you are either retarted or just plain stupid as Rugova was elected by half of population of Kosova. So fuck you....and fuck this piece of shit that just died...

Anonymous said...

ahhhh the wonders of glue sniffing... i see now that it is dangerous hehehe. ok this is from a shqipe that had to go through all that shit in kosovo ever since it started back in 1981-1999. first of all MR "the ilirian", Dr. Rugova was the first one who had any balls to stand up and say something or do something about Kosova. second of all if Dr.Rugova had not kept his cool and played the oh so beautiful game of politics 1998 would have happened much to soon when nobody was ready not even Uçk (except the serbs; they are always ready to start a war, it's in their blood). so please stay away from sniffin glue because it is affecting you in a bad way

Anonymous said...

correction: from a shqipe that had to go through all that shit in kosovA. sorry

Anonymous said...

the ilirian,

Njerez si ti me dije apo pa dije jane ne nje menyre tradhetare te popullit ne mendim timin. Po ta jap nje paralele, edhe Slloba ka mendu qe eshte patriot dhe dashamire i Serbve, mirepo shiqo se ku eshte dhe qka ju ka bere.

Per arsye te njerezve si ti ne kemi probleme te tilla sot. Mic Sokola qe ju kane dale topit perpara populli yne ka pase gjithmone mirepo gjithmone na kane munguar politikan te menqem me vizion. I tille ka qene Rugova, e ti per hesap temin je kah i del topit perpara me gjoks.

Nejse per fat te mire pakurrizoret si ti jane te paket ne popullin tone, se paku per momentin.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm....funny how a serb (Mir) is singing the praises of rugova isn't it??? Now...I just wonder why this might be??? I don't know but I think it's not usually the way...your enemies or the people the hate you normally speak badly of you, especially if you have done something to hurt or offend them in any way.

Hmmmm????

The Patriot