While some European Union countries prefer to keep the door open to give Serbian reformers some hope of reaching their goal of bringing the country closer to the rest of Europe, the United States and Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's chief prosecutor, are insisting that the European Union should not start any formal talks for a "stabilization and association agreement," a step toward eventual membership, until the two men have been handed over.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/international/europe/13belgrade.html
The autopsy result was disclosed as new evidence emerged that Mr. Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president found dead in his prison cell bed on Saturday, had been taking medicine not prescribed by his physicians, including an antibiotic known to diminish or blunt the effect of the medicines he had been taking for heart and blood-pressure problems.
It was unclear why he had taken that antibiotic, but one of Mr. Milosevic's legal advisers said Sunday that Mr. Milosevic knew something was wrong, and had expressed fear in a letter written one day before he was found dead that someone had been trying to poison him. The United Nations tribunal has dismissed the poisoning speculation.
Dr. Donald Uges, a top toxicologist in the Netherlands who had consulted on the case earlier at the request of the tribunal, said today that he thought Mr. Milosevic had taken the drugs to undermine his health to support his plea for a medical transfer to Moscow, where his family now lives.
"I don't think he took his medicines for suicide, only for his trip to Moscow," Dr. Uges told Reuters. "I think that was his last possibility to escape the Hague. I am so sure there is no murder."
Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the tribunal, said at a news conference on Sunday before the autopsy result was released that she did not rule out suicide. She also said Mr. Milosevic had been thoroughly monitored by medical aides, and that it was "very strange, even if it is of course possible, that he should have died so suddenly without these medics having noticed a worsening of his condition."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/international/europe/13cnd-milosevic.html