Episode 160: The Secret History of the CIA's Drug Trafficking Operations

Disclaimer: To provide you with the highest quality podcast possible, we use an Artificial Intelligence Audio voice. This means the podcast is spoken by an A.I. voice.

I chose to create the podcast with an A.I. voice because my main language is not english.

Episode 160: The Death of Slobodan Milosevic — Justice Denied and the Hague Conspiracy

On 11 March 2006, Slobodan Milosevic, the former President of Yugoslavia and Serbia, was found dead in his cell at the United Nations Detention Unit at Scheveningen, near The Hague. He had been on trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia — the longest and most complex war crimes trial in history — charged with sixty-six counts including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes arising from the conflicts in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo. His death came four years into the trial and before a verdict had been reached. The circumstances of his death, and his own public accusations in the months beforehand, ensure that it remains a contested chapter in the history of international criminal justice.

The official autopsy determined that Milosevic died of a heart attack. He had suffered from significant cardiovascular disease throughout the trial, and the tribunal had on multiple occasions considered releasing him temporarily to receive treatment in Russia. He himself had written a letter to the Russian government shortly before his death claiming that he was being poisoned. An independent toxicological examination found traces of rifampicin — an antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis and leprosy — in his blood, a substance that is known to interfere with the metabolism of the heart medication he was taking. This was a medically significant finding.

The tribunal's own investigation concluded that while the rifampicin was unusual, it could not be conclusively determined that it had been administered without Milosevic's knowledge, since he had unsupervised access to packages sent to his cell. Milosevic's supporters and Russian authorities claimed that the discovery proved he had been poisoned to prevent him from completing his defence, which had included voluminous documentary evidence challenging the Western narrative of the Yugoslav wars. His defence team had argued that he was mounting an increasingly effective case.

The question of whether Milosevic would have been convicted is genuinely unknowable. The prosecution's case was extensive and included significant evidence. His death denied both the possibility of conviction and the possibility of acquittal, and in doing so denied whatever measure of historical clarity a verdict might have provided. The rifampicin finding remains unexplained.

Keywords: Slobodan Milosevic death Hague, Milosevic poisoning conspiracy, ICTY war crimes trial Milosevic, Milosevic rifampicin toxicology, international criminal tribunal Yugoslavia, Milosevic heart attack official verdict, Scheveningen detention unit death, Milosevic trial incomplete verdict, Yugoslav wars war crimes, Milosevic Russian letter poisoning, Serbia war crimes tribunal, Milosevic death investigation, international justice conspiracy, Hague tribunal prisoner death, Yugoslavia genocide trial

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.