Milosevic received drugs, booze in cell

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Slobodan Milosevic had regular access to drugs and alcohol smuggled into his prison cell, yet the U.N. war-crimes tribunal failed to take action despite warnings, tribunal officials said Tuesday.

Two officials told The Associated Press the unit's prison warden had cautioned the tribunal president and registrar that as a result, Milosevic's health could not be guaranteed.

Nevertheless, they said, no action was taken to tighten supervision. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the tribunal's confidentiality rules.

The officials, who had access to confidential reports on Milosevic's incarceration, were countering allegations by Milosevic's loyalists that the former Serb president was poisoned or unwittingly given harmful drugs. They said two doctors had concluded that Milosevic intentionally took drugs that undermined the medicine prescribed for his heart ailments, to slow the pace of his war-crimes trial.

Hours earlier, Milosevic's son alleged his father was murdered in custody. "He got killed. There's a murder," Marko Milosevic told AP Television News.

The Milosevic family and Serb authorities agreed the former president would be buried in Belgrade, according to announcements in The Hague and in the Serb capital. Debate had centered over whether he should instead be buried in Moscow, where his son and widow, Mirjana Markovic, live.

It was not clear how the services would affect the arrest warrant for Markovic. Considered the power behind the scenes during Milosevic's autocratic rule in the 1990s, she faces charges of abuse of power.

A Belgrade court said the warrant for Markovic would be suspended, but she would be required to surrender her passport when she came to Serbia for the funeral.

Milorad Vucelic, vice president of the Socialist Party of Serbia, said "the decision has been reached to organize a dignified funeral for our late president" in the Serb capital. Vucelic, who was charged by the family with organizing the funeral, said it would be held Thursday or Friday.

Milosevic, who presided over four Balkan wars and the breakup of Yugoslavia that cost some 250,000 lives, died of a heart attack in bed in his cell, according to preliminary autopsy findings. His body was found Saturday.

Russian medical experts came to the Netherlands on Tuesday to examine the autopsy results, saying they distrusted the findings and the care Milosevic received. Leo Bokeria, who headed the delegation, later told Russian state-run television the team was satisfied with the autopsy.

"The examination was conducted at a very high level, it was very detailed, they have 12 hours of video footage and a huge number of slides, photos, graphs and so on," he said. "We agree with the preliminary diagnosis, which is a heart attack, a sudden death from heart failure."

Milosevic, who was defending himself against 66 counts of war crimes, was allowed to work in a private office where he could meet with witnesses and legal advisers unsupervised, making it impossible to monitor material they may have smuggled in to him, one of the tribunal officials told the AP.

A Dutch toxicologist, Donald Uges, said Monday that blood tests earlier this year uncovered traces of a drug used to treat leprosy or tuberculosis that would neutralize the effects of the beta-blockers Milosevic was taking for high blood pressure.

U.N. prosecutors complained as early as 2004 that Milosevic was defying his regime of medication and taking other drugs to manipulate his health to his advantage during the court proceedings.

The tribunal declared the case against Milosevic closed Tuesday.