OSCE Chairman regrets death of Milosevic could mean no closure for victims

SALZBURG, 11 March 2006 - The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht, said today he regretted that the death of the former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, would likely mean no conclusion to his trial for crimes against humanity and other offences before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

Speaking from Salzburg, where he was attending a meeting of EU foreign ministers, the Chairman-in-Office warned that this unexpected development would deny closure to many of the surviving victims of former President Milosevic's policies.

"This actually underlines the need for the international community and certain countries to fully support the ICTY in bringing the remaining fugitives to justice, in order not to block the process of reconciliation. It is essential to achieve this if we are to see a better future for the whole region", he added.

The Chairman-in-Office said he was satisfied that the OSCE would continue to extend trial monitoring support under the important bilateral agreement with the ICTY that was reached by the Permanent Council on 19 May last year.

Under the terms of that agreement, which followed a proposal from the Prosecutor Carla del Ponte to the Chairmanship, the existing OSCE missions to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro are involved in monitoring war crimes trials being transferred from the ICTY to the judiciaries of their respective host countries.