The former spokeswoman for the Hague Prosecution, Florence Hartmann, claims that the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who was accused for war crimes by the Hague tribunal, knowingly took wrong medications to deteriorate his health, in order to get released to defend himself from freedom and escape to Russia.
Hartmann claimed in an interview for Croatian weekly “Express” that “Milosevic was poisoning himself”, because he was taking medicine that someone had delivered to his cell for a while.
Thus, she reminded again on the story of Milosevic’s death, saying that by taking the drug, which is used to treat leprosy, he annulled the effect of the drug for high blood pressure, from which he suffered.
“He could easily die from that, but it was not his goal, he only wanted to worsen the situation. Milosevic knew what he was taking, because urine turns blue from this medicine and it is clear that he had to see it, says Hartmann.
According to her, Milosevic’s strategy was to avoid a conviction, as someone who has been at the forefront of the country, not to be remembered in history as someone who is guilty of genocide.
Apparently, even prison warden in Scheveningen warned the Council of the court that he has the problem, because he cannot search Milosevic’s cell, since it was converted into an office.
Milosevic’s legal associate, Zdenko Tomanovic, said for Belgrade’s Vecernje Novosti that upon notification of the death from The Hague, they placed information that he hung himself.
“When I asked for an explanation of how he got back to bed, where he was found dead if he hung himself, they switched to the thesis that he killed himself by poisoning, and now that he was poisoning himself to escape to Russia,” said Tomanovic.
According to him, such “cheap fictions are not original and not effective.”
Hartmann said that the former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska and indicted for genocide and war crimes, General Ratko Mladic, is in a similar situation as Milosevic.
“The trial is ending and now he is trying to get away before sentencing. Who says that Mladic will survive? Who says that, after what happened with Milosevic, he will not succeed in making them let him go for medical treatment in Russia,” asks Hartmann.
Mladic’s defense lawyer, Miodrag Stojanovic, says that such a comparison is insidious and evil.
“Our request to allow him to go for treatment in Moscow stands, the Tribunal still did not answer, because guarantees from Russia have not arrived yet,” said Stojanovic.
(Source: Hayat/Photo: Reuters)
