BELGRADE, Serbia, March 18 (UPI) -- Former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was buried Saturday in the backyard of his provincial home.
Milosevic's wife Mira Markovic did not come to Serbia to attend his funeral because she was apparently afraid she would be detained by pro-Western reformist authorities. She has been sought by Serbia's court on corruption charges.
His son Marko and daughter Marija also failed to appear at the private burial in Milosevic's home garden in Pozarevac, 50 miles east of Belgrade.
Instead, friends of the family read short speeches written by Marko and Mira Markovic and dispatched from Russia to Belgrade for the occasion.
Marko and his mother Mira fled Serbia after Milosevic's demise in 2000 and have settled in Moscow. Daughter Marija lives in Montenegro.
Officials of Milosevic's Socialist party of Serbia organized the funeral ceremonies after the government banned a state burial with military honors for the former strongman, dubbed the "Butcher of the Balkans."
Milosevic died of a heart attack March 11 in his detention cell in The Hague, where he was standing trial on genocide and war crimes charges in the former Yugoslavia.
