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Milosevic Found Dead in Prison
A supporter of Slobodan Milosevic kisses a poster of the ousted Yugoslav leader at a support-group headquarters in Belgrade. Milosevic faced charges before a U.N. tribunal for atrocities committed in the Balkan wars during the 1990s.
(By Marko Drobnjakovic -- Associated Press)
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Marko Kraljevic, 63, a passenger on Bus 31 near Belgrade's Hotel Slavija, said Milosevic was a victim of the Hague system. "It clawed his eyes and soul out," he said. "It's amazing a man his age could endure such abuse for so long."
But Zoran Knezevic, owner of the Malt cafe on Branicevska street, said he felt no sympathy. "Milosevic was guilty for ruining and bankrupting our country, for drawing us into war," Knezevic said. "He is guilty for everything that befell us for 10 years. For these crimes I wish he had been tried here and gotten the severest penalty."
Across the Balkans, civilian victims and wartime rivals expressed regret that Milosevic died before the tribunal reached a verdict.
"We're sorry because he will never face legal consequences for his deeds," said Hajra Katic, a member of the Mothers of Srebrenica, a group of women seeking justice for the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica. "However, it seems that he finally faced the God's will."
"For the victims and truth and justice, it would have been better if he lived to the end of the trial," said Sulejman Tihic, a Muslim member of the Muslim-Serb-Croatian inter-ethnic presidency of Bosnia. Bosnia has sued the entire nation of Serbia for war crimes, a case that has just begun in the International Court of Justice, a separate court in The Hague.
In Croatia, a country that was sometimes at war with Serbia and sometimes participated in its efforts to carve up Bosnia, President Stjepan Mesic issued a written statement: "It's a pity that Milosevic did not live through the trial and get his deserved sentence."
The U.S. State Department issued a short statement acknowledging Milosevic's death that read in part, "Milosevic was the principal figure responsible for the violent dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Milosevic's rule has long ended, and the United States supports a future for the Serbian people of peace, security, prosperity and greater integration with the Euro-Atlantic community.
Williams reported from Rome. Correspondent Peter Finn in Moscow, special correspondents Rade Maroevic and Joan McQueeney Mitric in Belgrade, and staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
