The Claim:
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that former Serbian president and convicted war criminal, Slobodan Milosevic, died due to negligence by authorities in The Hague in 2006.
The Facts:
A UN inquiry found that Milosevic “was not the victim of murder at the time of his death from a heart attack in March [2006], the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said today, confirming the results of earlier investigations.” There is no evidence to suggest that his death was intentional.
The UN inquiry noted that “Mr. Milosevic was ‘alone in the locked cell’ when he died, the report says. An autopsy with full pathological and toxicological investigations confirmed that he had died of natural causes from a heart attack. No poison was found in his body, nor did any other chemical substance present in his body contribute to his death. In addition, there were no indications of external violence.”
According to the UN report, “at the time of his death, Mr. Milosevic faced 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo between 1991 and 1999.”
Following Slobodan Milosevic’s death, four separate verdicts found him to be part of a joint criminal enterprise that used crimes to remove Croats, Bosniaks, and Albanians from large parts of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo .
