Slobodan Milosevic claimed a day before his death that he risked being poisoned, his legal advisor said Sunday, fuelling swirling rumours over the demise of the former Yugoslav leader while on trial for war crimes.
Shortly before doctors began an autopsy on the body, Zdenko Tomanovic, who advised Milosevic during his trial over more than four years, read from a letter the ex-president had written Friday to the Russian embassy.
"'They would like to poison me. I'm seriously concerned and worried'," he quoted Milosevic as writing. "In the letter he wrote about a medical report that he got that showed that there were strong drugs in his system only used for treating leprosy or tuberculosis," said Tomanovic.
Milosevic was found dead in his prison bed Saturday at the tribunal in The Hague, where he was being judged for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity over the 1990s Balkan wars that killed more than 200,000 people.
Hardcore loyalists to the man branded the "Butcher of the Balkans" accused the UN court of responsibility for his death, some even laying accusations of murder by poisoning. Chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte dismissed such allegations as "rumours" and said she could not rule out the possibility that the 64-year-old had committed suicide.
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