Milosevic Is Hospitalized After Suffering Chest Pains

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was rushed to the hospital late Wednesday after suffering chest pains in his prison cell, his lawyer said.

“There were heart problems that necessitated his transferal to the military hospital in Belgrade,” said Milosevic’s lawyer, Toma Fila. “It was nothing too dramatic.”

Fila said he expected the district court in Belgrade, the capital, to make an announcement about Milosevic’s condition today. Milosevic is known to have high blood pressure.

The state-run Tanjug news agency said Milosevic was undergoing tests in the hospital. The independent Beta news agency, citing unidentified sources, reported that the former president was in a “state prior to a heart attack.”

The transfer came only hours after Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia issued a statement claiming that the former leader’s health was jeopardized by his imprisonment.

Jailed on April 1, the 59-year-old Milosevic has been held in a specially refurbished cell in Belgrade’s Central Prison pending an investigation into corruption and abuse of power during his 13-year rule.

The Socialists demanded that their leader be “allowed to defend himself as a free man.” They did not make any specific statement about his physical or medical condition.

The party, citing “bitterness at a media lynching campaign against Milosevic and his family,” also urged an end to what it called the “harassment” of his relatives.

Since his arrest, the Socialists have insisted that Milosevic’s detention is illegal and demanded a special parliamentary inquiry.

On the day the former strongman surrendered, a Belgrade judge ordered Milosevic detained for 30 days pending the criminal investigation. Milosevic could also face charges for resisting arrest at his home.

Milosevic is also wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague for alleged atrocities committed during his 1998-99 crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic.

He stepped down in October after riots over his refusal to accept an electoral defeat.