Mladic's right-hand man died in jail of natural causes

A Bosnian Serb general jailed for life for committing genocide during the Balkans wars died of natural cases in a UN detention centre, court officials said Friday after an autopsy.

Zdravko Tolimir died late Monday in the jail in The Hague where he was awaiting transfer to another country to serve out his sentence.

Once dubbed the right-hand man of notorious army chief Ratko Mladic, Tolimir was sentenced in 2012 for genocide and crimes against humanity committed "on a massive scale" during the 1990s Bosnian war -- including his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

"The Dutch authorities have advised... that based on the results of the autopsy it was concluded that Mr. Tolimir died of natural causes," a statement from officials with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said.

The UN-backed ICTY had ordered an inquiry into the death of Tolimir, 67, who was arrested in Bosnia in May 2007 and handed over to the tribunal.

Tolimir had complained of health problems on his arrival at the ICTY’s detention unit, saying he had suffered a number of strokes.

He told judges in February 2015 that he had undergone heart surgery to insert four stents in his arteries.

Described as Mladic's "eyes and ears" on the ground, Tolimir was one of the most senior Bosnian Serbs to be tried by the UN war crimes tribunal and only one of a handful found guilty of genocide.

But he was not the first ICTY defendant to die in jail.

Ailing former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, blamed for the wars accompanying the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, also died of natural causes in an ICTY prison cell in March 2006, just weeks before the end of his long-running trial.

Mladic himself is on trial at The Hague facing charges including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including for Srebrenical.

Source :AFP