Bizarre, ironic, cosmically just?
In the follow-up to the death of Slobodan Milosevic and the inquiry into the nature and cause of his death, there’s now this bizarre new chapter of the story out of the Netherlands. Initial reports say that Milosevic died of a massive heart attack. But now a Dutch toxicologist says that shortly before Milosevic’s death, blood tests of the imprisoned war criminal showed traces of a drug called rifampicin, a drug which among other things would counter the effects of high blood pressure meds (it kicks your liver into overdrive and breaks them down more quickly).
Now, why would these drugs be in Milosevic’s system? Was someone trying to kill him or (what came to my mind first) was this a rather indirect manner of suicide?
Here are the key grafs from the report …
Uges told Reuters he believed Milosevic took the drugs himself to try to prove that his medical care at The Hague was inadequate in an attempt to go to Russia for specialist medical treatment.
Last month, the war crimes tribunal rejected his request to travel to Moscow for treatment.
“I am so sure there is no murder. There is not any reason for that,” Reuters quoted Uges as saying.
“I don’t think he took his medicines for suicide — only for his trip to Moscow. When he was in Moscow he would be free. That is where his friends and family are. I think that was his last possibility to escape the Hague,” Uges said.
There’s something absurd and petty and somehow silly about it. Perhaps a fitting ending for one of the late 20th century’s great and most destructive opportunists.
