The United Nations war crimes tribunal has formally closed the case against Slobodan Milosevic and expressed regrets that the victims of the Balkan wars will be deprived of a verdict.
The Serb leader was found dead in his prison cell on Saturday. An autopsy found he died of a heart attack but the tribunal was awaiting a toxicology report on whether any substances aggravated the attack.
Milosevic, who was 64, claimed before his death that he feared he was being poisoned. Yesterday, a Dutch toxicologist said he suspects Milosevic was manipulating medication in an apparent ploy to persuade the tribunal to let him go to Russia for treatment of his heart condition.
His death came within weeks of the conclusion of his $200 million trial on 66 counts of war crimes and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during Yugoslavia's violent breakup in the 1990s. It had dragged on for more than four years, repeatedly delayed by his ill health.
Milosevic was the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes.
He was the sixth war crimes suspect from the Balkans to die at The Hague. A week earlier, convicted former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, a star prosecution witness against Milosevic, killed himself in the same prison.
AP