UN tribunal seeks answers
A UN tribunal that was stunned by the courtroom suicide of a Bosnian Croat war criminal yesterday said it was working with Dutch investigators to piece together how he smuggled a fatal dose of poison into the high-security building.
Slobodan Praljak, 72, died on Wednesday at a hospital in The Hague within hours of drinking a vial of liquid during the reading of his appeals judgment at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Preliminary testing confirmed that the cause of death was "drinking a liquid that can kill," spokesman Vincent Veenman of the public prosecutors office in The Hague said.
"We cannot yet say what that substance was. Further testing is needed," he said.
A 5-member ICTY appeals bench upheld Praljak's conviction on charges of crimes against humanity over persecution, murders and expulsions of Bosnian Muslims from territory captured by nationalist Bosnian Croats and the brutal imprisonment of wartime detainees. It also upheld his 20-year prison sentence.
Dutch prosecutors said the inquiry was focused on assisted suicide and violation of the Medicines Act. It will also try to determine how the poison was smuggled into the court.
Stricter procedures at the UN detention unit were adopted following the 2006 death of suspect Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian and Yugoslav president. Milosevic, who died of a heart attack before his verdict on genocide and war crimes charges, had banned medication in his cell which may have worsened an existing heart condition.
The dramatic events unfolded in the last minutes of the court's final ruling before it closes next month after 24 years.
Previously, two defendants awaiting their ICTY trial, both Serbs, committed suicide by hanging themselves in their UN cells, according to court documents.
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