POZAREVAC (Serbia-Montenegro), March 18: Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic was buried on Saturday in his Serbian home town of Pozarevac after a day of tributes by tens of thousands of mourners.

The wooden casket carrying Milosevic’s remains was lowered into the ground at 1653 GMT within his family’s home compound, close to the centre of the town, 70 kilometres southeast of Belgrade.

In a solemn dusk burial ceremony, dignitaries including senior members of his Socialist Party (SPS) and the ultra-nationalist Radical Party stood on a red carpet surrounding his grey-white tombstone.

Inscribed on it in gold were the letters: “Slobodan Milosevic, 1941-2006”.

None of his immediate family members was present after Markovic and their son Marko lashed out at Serbian authorities for “threats and blackmail” they said prevented them from attending the burial.

But a senior Socialist Party official, Ljiljana Milanovic, read out a letter from his widow, moments before his coffin was lowered.

“You have returned home forever to stay in this spot,” said the letter from Mira Markovic, who is believed to be in Russia in self-imposed exile.

“We were constantly together. You’ve spent five years in prison and I haven’t seen you in three.

“You returned home from The Hague prison and I am not there with you. Criminals who killed you maybe want my life and the life of our children.

“You have returned home to stay here forever in this spot.

“Every struggle against injustice will in the future be inspired by you.”

A letter from Milosevic’s son, Marko, was also read out by another senior SPS official, Bogoljub Bjelica.

“Dad, I fulfilled what you asked of me and I sent you home, here with us, where you wanted, where your place is,” it read.

“... One of the most beautiful places in this holy Serbian land where the greatest Serbian heroes and martyrs died for their homeland,” said his son’s letter.

Milosevic’s funeral came hours after more than 50,000 of his die-hard supporters converged on the federal parliament in Belgrade for a final send-off rally at which speakers glorified his life and 13-year regime.

He was aged 64 when he died of a heart attack on March 11 in a cell of The Hague, where he was being tried for war crimes over his allegedly genocidal role in the 1990s wars that shattered former communist Yugoslavia. —AFP