Jovanka Broz, Tito's widow, buried with military honors in Belgrade

BELGRADE, Serbia, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Jovanka Broz, widow of late Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, was buried next to her husband Saturday in a ceremony attended by veterans of World War II.

While Serbian President Ivica Dacic gave a eulogy and Broz was buried with military honors, there was no religious service and no flag on the coffin, the Serbian news agency Tanjug reported.

Broz was honored as a veteran who joined the Yugoslav partisans at the age of 16 in 1941 and remembered as a woman who was targeted by political enemies in the last year's of Tito's life and the period immediately after his death in 1980.

"She was the victim of a political showdown and fight for power," Dacic said. "When I delivered to her the passport and the ID card several years ago, she said that she would not travel anywhere, but that for her, the documents represent a proof of existence."

Broz, 89 when she died on Sunday, was under house arrest for a period after Tito's death before the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. She lived quietly for the rest of her life.

She held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Yugoslav People's Army and had been decorated for bravery.

The honor guard was from the 6th Lika Division, in which Broz served during World War II and she was placed in her tomb to the strains of the Partisan anthem "Bella Ciao." Some of the mourners wore red star caps or carried Yugoslav flags and pictures of Tito and Broz.