YUGOSLAVIA: THE AVOIDABLE WAR PART 3 OF 9
Slobodan Miloševic was President of Serbia and of Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and then as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. He also led Serbia's Socialist Party from its foundation in 1990. He is a descendant of the Vasojevici Montenegrin clan.
He was one of the key figures in the Yugoslav wars during the 1990s and Kosovo War in 1999. He was indicted in May 1999, during the Kosovo War, by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity in Kosovo. Charges of violating the laws or customs of war, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in Croatia and Bosnia and genocide in Bosnia were added a year and a half later.
He conceded defeat and resigned after demonstrations, following the disputed presidential election of October 2000. Within nine months of his ousting, he was arrested by security forces in Yugoslavia on charges of corruption whilst in power, and within a very short time, was extradited to stand trial in the The Hague.
At the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Miloševic conducted his own defense. He died after five years in prison with just fifty hours of testimony left before the conclusion of the trial. Miloševic, who began to suffer from heart ailments, high blood pressure and diabetes after he was imprisoned, died of a heart attack.
