Serbian newspapers lashed out today at the UN war crimes tribunal, blaming The Hague-based court for the "murder" of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
The early editions of the dailies devoted up to eight pages of coverage on yesterday's death of Milosevic in his UN court cell in The Hague, Netherlands, where he had been on trial for more than four years.
"The Hague killed Milosevic," said the front pages of both Press and Glas Javnosti, against black backgrounds bearing large pictures of the former Serbian strongman.
"Murdered," said Kurir, another of the Balkan state's dailies, basing its story on an interview with a local doctor who had carried out a medical check-up on Milosevic in November.
"Milosevic was very ill while leaders of the New World Order wanted the former Serbian president to disappear because they were involved in the trial they couldn't get out of," the doctor, Vukasin Andric, was quoted as telling Kurir.
The same doctor told the Vecernji Novosti newspaper that "Milosevic was a nightmare for the tribunal".
"They wanted to kill him at any price in the awareness that with his death, they would hide the real truth," Andric said according Novosti, Serbia's largest circulation daily with more than 200,000 readers.
"Along with Milosevic, all the truths important for the Serbian people which he had kept for the end of the trial died."
The Politika newspaper, which was the mouthpiece of Milosevic's regime in the 1990s but has rebuilt its reputation since his overthrow by popular uprising in 2000, said his death meant he would "never be proclaimed guilty".
But it also focussed on suspicions within Serbia and abroad about the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia following the death of Milosevic.
"It is clear why complaints against The Hague tribunal are being heard again," said Politika, referring to its recent decision to turn down his request to receive medical treatment in Russia.
"Milosevic's death is considered very compromising for the work of the tribunal in The Hague," said the broadsheet, also referring to Friday's announcement by the UN court that former Kosovo Albanian prime minister Ramush Haradinaj would be allowed to engage in limited political activities despite facing charges for war crimes.
"Although there was speculation that the recent events in The Hague could influence future extradition of indictees like (former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, the European Union sent message that there is no change its position towards Serbia in this regard."
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