Mr Milosevic was by far the most important figure captured and tried by the tribunal and his case set a precedent in international law. But by allowing the former president to defend himself, the tribunal was turned into something of a farce, with proceedings often descending into angry exchanges between judge and defendant or Mr Milosevic giving the court a lesson in the history of Yugoslavia - as seen through the eyes of an ultra-Serb nationalist who believed entirely in his own innocence.
Victims
The death of Mr Milosevic is an added tragedy for the families of those lost in the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Without a verdict, there are still questions about the true scale of their former leader's crimes. Janet Anderson, head of the International Justice Program at the Institute of War and Peace Reporting in The Hague says it's a frustrating end to proceedings:
"People will always consider that it [the tribunal] has done a reasonable job, but whether they will think that at the end of the day they got all of the answers that are needed about what happened in the former Yugoslavia, with a stamp to say, guilty, not guilty… that, I think, will be the issue."
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The trial had been going on for four years |
Slobodan Milosevic had been on trial in The Hague since February 2002 and faced 60 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. As well as those charges, he was also accused of genocide relating to the Bosnian war and in particular the massacre at Srebrenica during which 7,500 Muslim men died.
With Mr Milosevic dead, the tribunal is likely to intensify its calls to Serbian authorities to arrest former Yugoslavia's other main warmongers, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.
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Click to listen to an interview with Janet Anderson |
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Janet Anderson says the problem is that there is still a lot of resentment in Belgrade about the existence of the tribunal:
"I think there's a very strong move to bring Mladic to the tribunal. At the moment the problem with Karadzic is that nobody seems to know exactly where he is. But I would be surprised if we saw Mladic here in the very short term, as was starting to be expected, because I think the death of Milosevic casts a pall over the tribunal and the authorities in Belgrade will not want to be seen to be cooperating so strongly with the tribunal at such a sensitive time."
Tags: ICTY, international, justice, Karadzic, milosevic, Mladic, The Hague, tribunal