Court TV Host: Did Slobodan Milosevic bring on his own death by taking drugs to feign illness as his years-long war crimes trial was drawing to a close? Did he commit suicide? Or, as his son charges, was he poisoned? As the investigation into the death of the former Yugoslavian leader continues, the Hague tribunal today formally declared the case against him closed. But what impact will his death -- and the allegations and rumors surrounding it -- have on the former Yugoslavia and the efforts to bring alleged perpetrators of Balkan war crimes to justice? Discuss these questions with Edgar Chen, Liaison in the Hague for the Coalition for International Justice, a non-profit organization that supports and monitors international war crimes tribunals, and Louis Sell, former State Department Foreign Service officer, Political Deputy to the first High Representative for Bosnian Peace Implementation and author of the book Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia.

Court TV Host: Welcome, thanks for being our guest today.

Question from Kissel: A question for Mr. Chen: This is Kissel. How would you characterize the opportunity -- in terms of international justice, war-crimes cases, precedent setting, and so forth -- that will now be missed due to Mr. Milosevic's death?

Edgar Chen: I would say that while it's regrettable that there will be no verdict and no finding of fact record in connection with Milosevic's individual criminal guilt, the evidentiary legacy of his trial will far outlive him. I think we need to focus on the evidence that has been driven to the surface by his trial. And we should also note that one man does not a genocide make. His co-conspirators remain to be tried.

Louis Sell: I would add that what's already on the record -- if there's ever been any doubt -- makes Milosevic's guilt crystal clear.

Edgar Chen: Even though his case is closed, the testimony that has been given so far, that has been recorded, now becomes documentary evidence that can be used in other cases, so it's not a loss from evidentiary standpoint.

Louis Sell: The very fact that a head of state can be brought to trial and held accountable for these kinds of actions -- regardless of the fact that he died before the verdict -- the very fact of being brought to trial is an enormously positive precedent, and, you must believe, a deterrent to future actions.

Question from lauren: What do you think of the family's allegation of murder?

Louis Sell: My first reaction is that we're still waiting for all the evidence to come in, but I would have to regard the accusation, which is obviously self-serving, like everything else that that family has been doing, as basically motivated by self-interest and propaganda. I would be very surprised if anything like that were true, but we have to be fair to wait until all the evidence is in.

Question from moonunity890: If it turns out that Milosevic accidentally killed himself, how would that information be greeted in his home of Serbia?

Louis Sell: I think probably that people who want to believe in conspiracies are going to believe in conspiracies, no matter what the evidence is but I have to believe that if the facts and the evidence were to show that Milosevic himself were responsible for this, that it would detract from his overall image in Serbia.

Edgar Chen: I would like to add that that image has been weakened over the years because what we can see, especially with hindsight, is that he has been a bungler. He bungled the dissolution of Yugoslavia, he bungled life for Croatian Serbs, Bosnian Serbs, Kosovar Serbs, and it would not be out of line to discover that he bungled his trial and his own life away. He was a manipulator. And one thing, from being at the court every day, you realize when watching him at trial, is that people from the region, from Yugoslavia, have commented to me, that he manipulated the trial in the same way that he manipulated events in the former Yugoslavia. The prosecution had alleged on various occasions that he had manipulated his health when it suited him, so the question of his manipulation of his health and medications certainly is out there. The tribunal had gone out of its way to ensure that he had a fair trial, and to take account of his health conditions, limiting court to three days a week for example, providing him with an office, and staff to liaison with the registry. If anything, Milosevic worked himself the way he did running his defense, because he knew he would be in the spotlight.

Louis Sell: I think that one of the lessons that hopefully the people running The Hague tribunal and other tribunals like it, including the one in Iraq for Saddam Hussein, is the danger of allowing defendants to manipulate the process. I'm not a lawyer, but it clearly seems to me that the court, for the best of motives no doubt, went way too far in allowing Milosevic to take advantage of every last procedural safeguard or right that any defendant might have. In some ways, it seems as if the court, in order to avoid any possible imputation of victors' justice, or that they were railroading Milosevic or others, went too far in building in any possible safeguard for a defendant. So it's been clear for years that Milosevic has been manipulating this process, and the court should have stopped it long ago. And now we see maybe even leaving aside his legal interest, but in his health interest, they should have stopped it long ago.

Edgar Chen: I absolutely agree.

Question from lauren: Do you agree, that he should not be allowed to be buried in his home country?

Louis Sell: I guess I think it's time to stop mythologizing Milosevic. As Mr. Chen has said, he was a bungler, and much worse than that, a criminal, he was the very worst thing for Serbia in many, many years and so let him be buried in Serbia. The authorities should not allow him to be buried in any especially significant spot, but for him to be buried at home will hopefully begin to allow Serbs to begin the process of seeing him for what he was and end the process of treating him as a hero. In the beginning, if you bury him in Serbia, there will be some who will try to manipulate that, I have to believe that over time that reason will prevail, and other Serbs, most Serbs, will see him , will come to treat the memory of Milosevic, in the way it should be.

Question from Kissel: In what ways might the remaining war-crimes cases be affected by Milosevic's death? For example, might certain witnesses or other accused now be more willing to talk?

Edgar Chen: I think that in some ways the hunt for the remaining fugitives may be impaired because anti-tribunal forces in Serbia will point to the death of Milosevic and the recent death of Milan Babic, a convicted war criminal, in tribunal custody, as evidence that the tribunal cannot protect the rights of Serb detainees and therefore Belgrade should not hand over someone like Ratko Mladic. On the other hand, I think it should strengthen the resolve of the international community to put pressure on Serbia to hand over these fugitives because we do have a gap in the record, since there will be no record for Milosevic. Milosevic's case was the first dealing with events in Kosovo at the ICTY, but it will not be the last. His henchmen are scheduled to go on trial later this year. We're talking about guys like Milan Milutinovic, who is a former president of Serbia -- so high ranking coconspirators of Milosesevic's. The evidence against Milosevic can still be used in their trials.

Louis Sell: It's clear that Milosevic's death is going to be a big setback in any efforts to get Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. There's a clear sense that events were closing in on both of them. The inability of the court to ensure the health and life of its detainees can't help but set back efforts to bring the remaining accused to arrest. I hope that this leads to a reevaluation of the court's rules for detention, the way it treats detainees. I wonder whether it might also raise the issue of -- can some of the accused be allowed to defend themselves while they're out of jail, which is often the case with many accused people. Obviously, the case of someone like Milosevic would be a huge threat for an escape, but there might be others where the threat is less, and they could still defend themselves while at liberty.

Edgar Chen: There is of course a presumption of innocence, and there must be, but many of these indictees have been fugitives on the run for almost a decade, and we're not talking about ordinary criminals. We're talking about people accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, with ties to a security apparatus that is known to be vicious, and their liberty has to be balanced with the need to protect witnesses. The tribunal has seen several instances of witness intimidation. There is a balancing that has to happen.

Court TV Host: Will the death of Milosevic have any impact on the overall stability of the former Yugoslavia?

Louis Sell: My view is that Milosevic's day has long since passed - he was a man of the past. His death won't have a direct impact future stability in the Balkans. In the short run, I think efforts will certainly be made to manipulate it in Serbia. In the short run, they may have some success; over the longer run, Milosevic's disappearance, even in the regrettable way it has happened, will be a benefit to the people of Serbia most of all, and to the rest of the Balkans. I also believe, that the very fact that finally he was brought to justice, arrested, - it took far too long, but that the head of state responsible for these crimes could be arrested and brought before the bar of justice will be a deterrent to future state criminals, whether they're in the Balkans or elsewhere.

Edgar Chen: I'd have to agree completely. There have been some comments out there, by other observers, who said that Milosevic "cheated" justice, by getting away without a verdict, but I think that what we have to remember is that from the day he set foot in the UN detention unit, and since his trial began, he spent the rest of his life behind bars. I was there on his last day in court, and, like every other day of his trial that I covered, he put on a typically mediocre examination and was his usual self, a little hoarse in the voice and had been complaining about a thundering noise in his head the week before. But when the judges told him they would hear none of it, he went on with his case. And I think that demonstrates that they could have taken a much harder line with him, as professor Sell mentioned. And that's the only way to deal with someone like Milosevic.

Court TV Host: Thank you both very much for joining us today.