Serbia invites dead Milosevic to vote

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BELGRADE, Serbia, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Serbia's former President Slobodan Milosevic has been invited to vote in a referendum, although his March death in a U.N. detention cell was widely publicized.

Belgrade's Press daily reported a voting card was sent to Milosevic's villa in the Serbian capital inviting the late president to cast his ballot next weekend, the BBC said Monday.

Milosevic died of a heart attack in March while on trial at The Hague tribunal on genocide and crimes against humanity charges in the former Yugoslavia from 1991-95.

The referendum is on a constitutional amendment on whether Serbia's predominantly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province will be a part of Serbia forever.

In 1999, Milosevic's police and military troops fought ethnic-Albanian separatists in Kosovo, and the conflict led to NATO's air-borne intervention against Serbian forces.

Milosevic was overthrown when allegations of vote-rigging in presidential elections in October 2000, sparked a revolt of hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Belgrade.

Milosevic was arrested by a new pro-Western government and handed over to The Hague in 2001.