Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was found dead early Saturday in the cell where he was being detained while on trial at United Nations war crimes tribunal at The Hague.

Milosevic's supporters hailed him as a leader who tried to preserve Serbia's place as the dominant Yugoslav republic. His detractors denounced him as a mass murderer, blaming him for leading the Balkans into a decade of wars that destroyed Yugoslavia and killed 250,000 people.

He was defending himself before the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on 66 charges, including genocide.

Slobodan Milosevic at the war crimes tribunal in 2004. (AP photo)
Slobodan Milosevic at the war crimes tribunal in 2004. (AP photo)

His trial was nearing its end, more than four years after it started.

The chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said she regretted the trial had been cut short because she was confident she would have won the case. It was the first time that a sitting head of state had been tried for war crimes.

France's Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters that Milosevic, 64, died of natural causes.

An autopsy was planned on Sunday, along with an inquiry into the death, but Milosevic's brother Borislav said he did not trust the UN to be impartial.

He said the tribunal caused his brother's death because a judge refused to let him get medical treatment in Russia.

Milosevic suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure, which repeatedly interrupted his trial.

He led Serbia into four Balkan wars, including the 1992-95 Bosnia conflict that left 200,000 people dead.

He was accused of overseeing the systematic killing of about 8,000 men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995, the worst massacre on European soil since the Second World War.

Eventually NATO sent 60,000 peacekeepers to the area to end the fighting and keep the Bosnian, Serb and Croatian armies apart.

'This man wrecked the Balkans'

Richard Holbrook, a former U.S. secretary of state and envoy to the Balkans, called Milosevic one of the worst leaders the world has ever seen.

"This man wrecked the Balkans," he said. "He was a war criminal who caused four wars, over 300,000 deaths, 2.5 million homeless."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called him a "malign influence" on the region.

"Finally, we have some reason to smile. God is fair," said Hajra Catic, who leads a group whose relatives were massacred at Srebrenica.

Serbian official Ivica Dacic had a different view. "Milosevic was carrying out not only his own defence but also the defence of Serb honour," Dacic said. "The entire country must thank him for this."

His was the second death within a week at the UN detention centre in Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague. Former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, serving 13 years for crimes against humanity, committed suicide in his cell on March 5.