Milosevic death robs victims of justice

Muslim women of Eastern Bosnian town of Tulza talk after gathering at their association office to watch Saturday the news relating the death of former Yogoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. PHOTO: AFP

"The death of Slobodan Milosevic, a few weeks before the completion of his trial, will prevent justice to be done in his case," said Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

"However, the crimes for which he was accused, including genocide, cannot be left unpunished."

The UN tribunal said Milosevic, 64, had been found dead in his cell in the Dutch city, shortly before his four-year-old trial for genocide and crimes against humanity during the violent break-up of old Yugoslavia was expected to conclude.

Milosevic -- once branded the "butcher of the Balkans" -- was widely seen in the West as the main culprit in Europe's worst conflicts since World War Two, which killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted millions from their homes.

"What's important is that the region, and particularly the people in Serbia, now draw a line across Milosevic's past and his life, which was a malign influence ..." British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.

There was widespread regret that Milosevic died before receiving the court's verdict.

"It is unfortunate and in many aspects unsatisfactory, given the countless victims of the Balkan wars, that justice now will not be able to run its course," Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in a statement.

Former Balkan envoy David Owen said "justice in a way has been cheated."

Milosevic was charged with 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in complex indictments covering bloody conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo as Yugoslavia imploded in the 1990s. He had declined to enter a plea.