Investigators have supposedly ruled out suicide in Milosevic's death, but interesting that it comes on the heels of this. From Radio Netherlands, March 6:

The former leader of rebel Serbs in Croatia, Milan Babic has committed suicide in his cell in Scheveningen - the detention centre for suspects from the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Mr Babic was due to return to court today to give evidence in the trial of Milan Martic, another Croatian Serb leader.

In January 2004, Mr Babic pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity during the war in Croatia and was eventually sentenced to 13 years in jail. He then became the first person convicted by the tribunal to give evidence against fellow suspects, including former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

Cross-examined
This week he was due to continue being cross-examined in the trial of Milan Martic. Janet Anderson of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting says his evidence has already been crucial:

"Babic does stand uniquely because of his willingness to keep coming back to the tribunal and keep testifying about what happened at the time. Each time he's come, he's said constantly how sorry he is, how much remorse he has for what happened, but also at other times, he says he's received a lot of threats against his life and that he was very concerned for the safety of his family."

"[…] He's been giving huge amounts of details at the trial of Milan Martic, another president of the rebel Serbs in Croatia. And you can only imagine the kinds of pressure he may have felt that he was under, giving so much detail about what happened at the time."

In 2002, Milan Babic contacted the tribunal and said he was willing to testify against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. The two had once been allies. Mr Babic was president of the self-proclaimed Serb republic of Krajina - an area which covered a third of Croatia - from May 1991 until February 1992. With the backing of Mr Milosevic, Milan Babic armed and mobilised rebel Serb fighters and began the ethnic cleansing of Croats and other non-Serbs from the Krajina area.

Later in 1992, though, he was sidelined and replaced as head of the rebel Serbs. That may give a clue as to why he was later prepared to give evidence against his one-time mentor, Slobodan Milosevic.

Key witness
The death of Milan Babic will be a blow to the tribunal in The Hague, with many trials still ongoing or yet to be heard in which Mr Babic could have been called as a witness for the prosecution. Janet Anderson of IWPR says the investigation into his death needs to be thorough:

"This is the kind of event that no courts, no tribunals in the world want to see happen and I'm sure that they will want to try to protect any inmates or any witness from coming under whatever mental pressure he came under that drove him to this desperate state."