Top Serb suspect dies

Stojiljkovic accused the parliament of betrayal

One of the most wanted Serbian war crimes suspects - former Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic - has died of self-inflicted wounds in Belgrade.

I accuse them of destroying Yugoslavia with the assistance of our greatest foreign enemy

Suicide note

Stojiljkovic - who headed the police under former President Slobodan Milosevic - shot himself in front of the federal parliament on Thursday just hours after its members voted to allow the extradition of suspects to The Hague tribunal.

His doctors said they were unable to save him.

Branko Djuric, head of neurology at Belgrade Emergency Centre, said: "Despite intense reanimation measures, death occurred on 13 April 2002 at 2130 [1930 GMT]."

Vlajko Stojiljkovic headed Slobodan Milosevic's police force

Mr Djuric said doctors had succeeded in restarting Stojiljkovic's heart but could not get him to breathe without a life support machine.

The bullet caused massive and irreparable damage to his skull and brain, and he had been in a coma.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica described the suicide as a "tragic event" and said it was a "warning to the international community that constantly sets conditions, pressures us and dictates behaviour".

Stojiljkovic was wanted by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague to face charges of being responsible for atrocities by police in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999.

'Puppet authorities'

Still a member of the federal parliament, he left an angry suicide note, accusing the parliament of betrayal.

Other suspects are not expected to go quietly

It was read out by the Radical Party legislator Aleksandar Vucic in front of the parliament.

"By this act I, as a deputy of the federal parliament, express my protest against all members of the puppet authorities," said the note.

Stojiljkovic accused Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djinjdic and Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica among others of destroying Yugoslavia with the assistance of "our greatest foreign enemy".

"Patriotic citizens of this country will know how to avenge me," he wrote.

Mr Milosevic's Socialist Party said Stojiljkovic was the "first victim" of the law legalising "the hunt for Serb patriots and heroes of the war against Nato aggressors and Albanian terrorists" in Kosovo.

Other wanted war crimes suspects, including Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, have also said they would rather die than be handed over to the tribunal.

The BBC's Alix Kroeger in Belgrade says Stojiljkovic's suicide has come as a shock, but it has not been enough to bring many people out onto the streets.