Milosevic's Moscow-based family 'won't attend funeral'
A senior official in Serbia’s Socialist Party said today that none of Slobodan Milosevic’s Moscow-based family will attend his funeral tomorrow, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Zoran Andjelkovic, a deputy leader of Milosevic’s party, was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti that Milosevic’s widow, Mirjana Markovic, his son, Marko Milosevic, and his older brother, Borislav Milosevic, would not be present for the funeral in his hometown of Pozarevac, about 30 miles southeast of Belgrade.
“According to information received by the Serbian Socialist Party, Slobodan Milosevic’s wife, Mirjana Markovic, his son, Marko, as well as his older brother, Borislav, will not go to the ex-president’s funeral,” Andjelkovic said by telephone from Belgrade, according to the Russian state news agency.
Milosevic died last weekend at a detention centre near the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, which was trying him on 66 counts of war crimes, including genocide.
Flown home on Wednesday, he is to be buried tomorrow at a family estate in the gritty industrial town of Pozarevac. His coffin went on public display on Thursday.
Markovic, who together with her son, Marko, lives in self-imposed exile in Russia, has indicated she was reluctant to come until all charges against her for alleged abuse of power during Milosevic’s reign were dropped.
Russia’s Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who arrived in Belgrade Friday to attend the funeral, said Markovic would not attend the burial because she fears she could be arrested while in Serbia.
“It’s enough that Marko lost his father,” Zyuganov told reporters. “He doesn’t need to lose his mother as well.”
There was no immediate comment from Markovic, who fled to Russia in 2003.
A Belgrade court on Tuesday suspended a warrant for her arrest – but ordered her passport to be seized upon arrival, which would prevent her from leaving the country immediately after the burial.
Borislav, who has been living in Moscow since the 1990s, when he served as the Yugoslav ambassador to Russia, is recovering from heart surgery.
