Investigation determines Milosevic died of natural causes

The public prosecutor’s department in The Netherlands has closed its investigation into the death of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, concluding that he died a natural death and that “there are no indications that the death resulted from crime”.

Mr Milosevic, 64, who was on trial for war crimes at The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, was found motionless on his bed in his cell in the Hague on Saturday, March 11, 2006 at around 10am.

Earlier that day, at around 9am, guards had knocked on the door. They assumed that he did not react to the wake-up call because he was asleep and only entered his cell at 10am.

The body was then seized by the public prosecutor in order to perform a judicial autopsy and was transferred to the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI).

At the request of the Tribunal they waited half a day so that two Serbian pathologists could be present during the autopsy on March 12. The NFI also invited a Belgian pathologist to attend the autopsy as an observer.

The NFI has now definitely come to the conclusion that the cause of death was cardiac arrest - during the autopsy serious heart disease was diagnosed and there were no signs of external violence.

No indications were found that showed poisoning and neither were toxicological factors found that might have provoked a cardiac arrest.

The Tribunal President, Judge Fausto Pocar, welcomed the final results of the Dutch authorities’ independent inquest.

Now that the Tribunal has been provided with copies of the independent autopsy and toxicology report, as well as the final inquest findings of the Dutch authorities, an internal enquiry will focus its attention on issues relating to the medical treatment provided to Mr. Milosevic while in the Tribunal's detention facility.

The internal inquiry expects to conclude its investigation on these issues shortly.

(GB/SP)