The older brother of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic accused the U.N. war crimes tribunal of causing his younger brother’s death Saturday by refusing him medical treatment in Russia.
Borislav Milosevic also said his family does not trust the tribunal to conduct the autopsy scheduled for Sunday.
“All responsibility for this lies on the shoulders of the international tribunal. He asked for treatment several months ago, they knew this. It is a criminal organization that has discredited itself morally and legally,” Borislav Milosevic, a former Yugoslav ambassador to Russia, told The Associated Press in Moscow.
“They drove him to this as they didn’t want to let him out alive.”
Slobodan Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure, asked the court in December to let him go to Moscow for treatment. But the tribunal refused, despite assurances from Russia that Milosevic would return to finish his trial.
Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his cell at a U.N. prison near The Hague. The 64-year-old appeared to have died of natural causes, the tribunal said.
“I know that his family is against any autopsy there because they don’t trust those doctors, just as he didn’t trust those doctors and that tribunal,” Borislav Milosevic said.
A pathologist from Serbia-Montenegro will attend the autopsy, to be conducted by Dutch authorities, at the request of Belgrade, the tribunal said.
The family has not decided where to bury the ex-Serbian president, his brother said. When asked if he would be buried in his homeland, Borislav said: “I don’t know yet. It’s his family who will decide.”
But he said his brother — branded “the butcher of the Balkans” by the United States after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during the breakup of his country — would be remembered differently in Serbia.
“He has a lot of supporters there, a lot of people who respect him. For them it will be a big blow,” he said.
“I think that his memory will remain etched in history and everything he did for his country and for his people, resisting separatism and terrorism and outside interference.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry implicitly criticized the U.N. war crimes tribunal for refusing Milosevic’s request to go to Moscow for medical treatment.
“Unfortunately, despite our guarantees, the tribunal did not agree to provide Milosevic the possibility of treatment in Russia,” the ministry said.
Slobodan Milosevic’s wife, Mirjana Markovic, has lived in self-imposed exile in Russia since 2003. A son, Marko, also lives there. Borislav, however, refused to confirm their current whereabouts.
Russia has historic ties with largely Slavic, Orthodox Christian Serbia, and sharply opposed the NATO bombing of Milosevic’s Yugoslavia in 1999.
