Скачать или смотреть BOSNIA: FUNERAL OF WAR CRIMES SUSPECT KOVACEVIC

(8 Aug 1998) Natural Sound

Thousands of Bosnian Serbs have attended the funeral of a war crimes suspect who died during his trial before a U-N tribunal.

Milan Kovacevic died last Saturday of a heart attack in his prison cell in The Hague, the Netherlands, where the tribunal is based.

He was facing charges of genocide and other wartime atrocities against Muslims and Croats.

His death ended the tribunal's first genocide trial.

They came to pay their last respects to a man they claim was innocent.

More than 3-thousand Bosnian Serb relatives, supporters and high-level politicians gathered at the funeral of Milan Kovacevic, the man they say was falsely accused of war crimes.

Kovacevic died in his high security prison cell last Saturday, in The Hague, putting an end to the U-N tribunal's genocide hearing.

Charges against the former anesthesiologist and Prijedor mayor stemmed from alleged wartime atrocities committed at three infamous prison camps in the Prijedor region in northwestern Bosnia in 1992.

The crimes were alleged to have been carried out against Muslims and Croats, but Kovacevic always maintained his innocence.

Had he been found guilty he would have faced a possible life sentence.

An official report from his autopsy is yet to be released, but sources close to the forensic experts have claimed Kovacevic died slowly and painfully from a ruptured aorta.
The Yugoslav government, which is requested to cooperate with the tribunal in The Hague and to surrender war crimes suspects, has protested to U-N authorities, saying Kovacevic was denied proper hospital treatment,

The tribunal, however, rejected the accusation as unfounded.

U-N troops in Bosnia arrested Kovacevic in July last year in Prijedor.

The town's authorities warned U-N officials not to attend the funeral, saying this could trigger unrest.

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