THE HAGUE, April 5 (RIA Novosti) - Dutch prosecutors said in a statement Wednesday that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic had died of natural causes.
Prosecutors said investigators had found no evidence that Milosevic had died as a result of foul play despite suggestions to the contrary in the immediate aftermath of his death.
Milosevic, 64, who was on trial in the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on charges of war crimes and genocide, was found dead in his prison cell March 11. Preliminary reports suggested he had died of a heart attack.
The tribunal had declined Milosevic's request to release him temporarily from detention in December 2005 to undergo treatment in Moscow in fear that the Serb would flee the trial.
Russian doctors who flew to The Hague after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would question the preliminary autopsy results, confirmed that Milosevic had died of a heart attack.
Leo Bokeria, a Russian famous heart surgeon, however, said Milosevic would have lived if he had received medical treatment earlier.
An investigation was launched amid accusations from Milosevic supporters and some Russian politicians that the ex-president's death might have been premeditated.
Zdenko Tomanovic, Milosevic's Serbian lawyer, said immediately after his death that his client had complained of attempts to poison him.
A Russian Foreign Ministry official said the ex-president's lawyers had brought a letter to the Russian Embassy in the Netherlands on March 11, in which Milosevic complained about inadequate treatment, which he said had been ruining his health, and repeated his request to come to Moscow.
Tribunal officials dismissed the accusations, saying Milosevic had taken some non-prescription pills and that Milosevic was trying to fall ill so as to be sent to Moscow. They said tests conducted in January had confirmed he had been taking non-prescribed medication.
Milosevic, seen by some as a national hero and accused by others of inciting ethnic strife and splitting the country, was buried in his home town of Pozarevac, 45 miles from Belgrade, on March 18.
