Justice Denied
IN THE DOCK: Milosevic stands in court in the Hague in 2004, part of a long, frustrating trial
BAS CZERWINSKI / AP
Sunday, Mar 12, 2006
The guard at the U.N. detention unit at Scheveningen, a seaside suburb of The Hague, was making his usual morning rounds last Saturday when, at around 9 a.m., he came to the cell occupied by Slobodan Milosevic, the former President of Yugoslavia whose policies precipitated the Balkan wars of the 1990s, in which some 200,000 people died. Milosevic, who had long suffered from high blood pressure, was dead, lying on his bed inside his chamber. He had died a few hours before; the body was handed to the Dutch coroner's office for an autopsy.
It was a downbeat exit for a man who had been championed by his supporters as a nationalist hero, but was condemned elsewhere as a ruthless butcher. In his native Serbia, President Boris Tadic issued official condolences, but there were no family members to receive them, so they were delivered to Milosevic's old political party headquarters instead.
Milosevic's death reminded the world of a dark period in recent history, and of how difficult it has proved to use international courts to bring to account those responsible for great crimes. The Serb leader was the star suspect in the longest running and perhaps the most important war-crimes prosecution since the Nuremberg trials held after World War II. Lawyers at the U.N.'s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had labored for four years to win his conviction on three separate indictments and 66 charges of genocide and other crimes against humanity, and a total of 132 charges, including those against staff under his command. His death, just a few months before a judgment was expected, comes as a serious blow not only to the individual prosecutors, but to the idea that criminal prosecutions can become a valuable tool of international justice. Natasa Kandic, a leading human-rights investigator in Belgrade who collected evidence against Milosevic, says the trial will be remembered as "the most important unresolved case in the history of international law."
The court has never been uncontroversial. Though supported by human-rights campaigners as an important innovation, it has long been rejected by many Serbs as a tool of victors' justice. Resentment at the way that suspects have been handled has made it difficult to bring the region's most famous fugitives, Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, into custody. They are still at large, believed to be sheltering somewhere in Serbia or the Bosnian Serb Republic. In Belgrade, Milosevic's allies dropped hints that he might have been poisoned, though his medical record — he had suffered from hyper tension for years — suggested that he died of natural causes. There were also rumors of suicide, fanned by knowledge that his family has a history of depression — both his parents killed themselves — and by the fact that another prisoner at the Hague, Milan Babic, who had been a leader of the Serbs in Croatia, died by his own hand last week. But Steven Kay, one of Milosevic's court-appointed attorneys, said his client had shown no signs of depression and was determined to finish the trial, although he knew that he was weak. "Milosevic wasn't the suicidal type," said Judge Richard Goldstone, the tribunal's first chief prosecutor. "He had a huge ego."
- 1
- 2
- NEXT PAGE »
Most Popular »
- Top 10 Celebrity Restaurants
- Facing the Challenge of China, Should India Embrace the U.S.?
- Pennsylvania College Sells 'Morning After' Pills in Vending Machine
- The Grand Canyon Bans Sales of Bottled Water
- Mitt Romney's Sweet Spot: Just Conservative Enough
- Earth From Above: The Blue Marble
- JC Penney and Ellen, Lowe's and All-American Muslim: A Tale of Two Bigotries
- Four Ways the U.S. Could End Up at War with Iran Before the Election*
- 'Glitter-Bombing' a Politician Could Get You Six Months in Jail
- Why Is Your Boss Moving to Brazil?
- The Upside Of Being An Introvert (And Why Extroverts Are Overrated)
- The Brain: How The Brain Rewires Itself
- Egypt's NGO Crisis: How Will U.S. Aid Play in the Controversy?
- Why Is Your Boss Moving to Brazil?
- Friends With Benefits
- Seoul Searching
- New York City: 10 Things to Do
- Pentagon Rules 'Shift' on Women in Combat
- Haiti Papers Over the Past: The Rebranding of 'Baby Doc' Duvalier
- In Singapore, Finding Peace Among the Pain of Thaipusam
More News from Our Partners
Top Stories on TIME.com
Quotes of the Day »
MICHAEL BREEN, vice president of the Truman Project, a national security leadership institute, on the possible outcome of the U.S. and Israel's tough stance on Iran's nuclear program
