Confusion surrounds Milosevic burial plans

The body of Slobodan Milosevic will be released to his family on Monday as the controversy surrounding plans for the former Serb leader’s burial intensified following the results of an autopsy conducted over the weekend.

The preliminary autopsy results indicated that Mr Milosevic, who was suffering from heart trouble and high blood pressure, died of a heart attack, according to Alexandra Milenov, a spokeswoman for the tribunal, on Sunday night.

However, speculation surrounding the causes of his death continued ahead of toxicological test results which are not expected until later in the week.The United Nations War Crimes Tribunal declined to comment on speculation that Mr Milosevic may have committed suicide, or allegations that he had been poisoned.

The Serb leader’s death has prompted arguments in Belgrade about his funeral. The extreme nationalists of the opposition Radical party called for “a national hero’s funeral” in Belgrade. Mr Milosevic’s Socialists demanded a ceremony fit for a national leader.

Mirjana Markovic, Mr Milosevic’s widow, who lives in Moscow and cannot visit Belgrade as she is wanted for abuse of power, called for a funeral in Russia. However, it appeared last night that Serbia would grant her a legal dispensation to attend a Belgrade funeral.

The confusion surrounding Mr Milosevic’s funeral plans emerged as Carla del Ponte, the United Nations prosecutor responsible for pursuing the Serbian, on Sunday warned that his death made it all the more urgent to bring other war crimes suspects to justice.

Her comments will increase the pressure on Serbia to arrest Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander, and co-operate in the hunt for Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader.

European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Salzburg at the weekend, also warned Belgrade it had less than a month to improve co-operation with the war crimes tribunal in the pursuit of Gen Mladic – or face the suspension of talks on a stabilisation and association agreement with Brussels.

Ms Del Ponte and the EU ministers were speaking after Mr Milosevic was found dead in his prison cell at the tribunal in The Hague, where he was on trial.

A furious Ms Del Ponte said his death deprived “the victims of the justice they need and deserve”. She added: “Now more than ever I expect Serbia to finally arrest and transfer Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic to the Hague as soon as possible. The death of Slobodan Milosevic makes it even more urgent for them to face justice.”

Ursula Plassnik, the Austrian foreign minister chairing a meeting of ministers from the EU, the Balkans and Turkey, said: “This [death] does not change or alter in any way the need to come to terms with the legacy of the past, the legacy of which Slobodan Milosevic has been a part.”

EU ministers tempered their warning with the promise of future EU membership for Serbia and for the rest of the western Balkans.

“Our goal is the western Balkans’ membership of the EU,” said Ms Plassnik. “Stability in the Balkans is part of our own security.” Austria had scheduled the meeting before Mr Milosevic’s death to emphasise the EU’s commitment to the Balkans despite waning public support for further enlargement to the Union.

The delays over Mr Milosevic’s funeral arrangements could give a little time to the fragile Serbian government, which will not want a grand Belgrade funeral. Ministers will be comforted by the fact that news of Mr Milosevic’s death prompted little public reaction on Sunday, with only about 100 elderly people gathering at his former party headquarters. Larger crowds were seen at the grave of Zoran Djindjic, the dynamic reforming prime minister, on the anniversary of his 2003 assassination.

However, the circumstances of Mr Milosevic’s death, including the allegation that he might have committed suicide, will reinforce the contempt many Serbs feel for the war crimes tribunal.

They see anti-Serb bias in the fact that Mr Milosevic’s requests to visit Moscow for medical treatment were rejected while Ramush Haradinaj, the only important ethnic Albanian indictee, had his bail restrictions eased on Friday.

The former Kosovo prime minister, who is at liberty while awaiting trial, had a ban on political activity relaxed.