Milosevic may have spat out pills-Russian doctor

MOSCOW, Mar 12 (Reuters) Doctors treating Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague suspected he was secretly spitting out the medicines they gave him, the head of a Russian clinic said today.

''The treatment they gave him was just to give him medicines for high blood pressure and they suspected he was not taking them,'' Leo Bokeria, head of the Bakulev Cardio-Vascular Surgery Centre in Moscow, told Russia's NTV television station.

''They carried out tests to check for the presence of the medicine in his bloodstream because they thought that he was hiding it in his cheeks.'' Bokeria added: ''In the conditions in which he was being held, it was impossible to help him.'' The former Yugoslav president was found dead in his cell at The Hague yesterday.

Medical staff from the Bakulev Centre examined Milosevic in the Hague in 2003 and 2005 and Bokeria was regularly sent copies of his medical records, Russian media reported.

Last month, the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague rejected a request by Milosevic to travel to the Bakulev Centre for treatment.

His lawyers said he did not trust the doctors treating him in the Hague.

Russia is a close ally of the former Yuguslavia and home to Milosevic's wife, brother and son.

Reuters KD DB2344