Duma official threatens ICTY with reprisals over death of ex-Serbian leader
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - March 11, 2006 Saturday

Text of report by Russian news agency RIA Novosti

Moscow, 11 March: The State Duma at its next plenary meeting, on 15 March, will adopt a resolution demanding that the judges of the Hague tribunal who denied medical treatment to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic be held accountable, State Duma Deputy Chairman Vladimir Zhirinovskiy told RIA-Novosti today.

Zhirinovskiy, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, said that deputies would demand abolition of the Hague tribunal, which had no legal status, and "is a mock trial". He said that representatives of the tribunal must be held responsible for wearing their defendant down.

Zhirinovskiy believes that the tribunal's representatives deliberately procrastinated over Milosevic's medical treatment because "they had no grounds for handing down a verdict on his case". "The best exit out of this impasse for them was Milosevic's death. First, Milosevic was tormented through trials lasting many years and then he was effectively killed," the State Duma deputy chairman said.

"It is atrocious that Europe which is defending human rights, refused treatment to gravely ill Slobodan Milosevic," he said. Milosevic should not have been treated as a criminal, Zhirinovskiy said. He was just a detainee and no sentence had been passed on his case.

For centuries Yugoslavia was the site of ethnic and religious confrontation, Zhirinovskiy said. "This was 'a powder keg' of Europe and it is bewildering that one man (Milosevic) got blamed for the entire history of humankind," he said.

Source: RIA Novosti, Moscow, in Russian 1410 gmt 11 Mar 06

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