Sweden to audit ICTY detention facility following Milosevic death News
Sweden to audit ICTY detention facility following Milosevic death

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive] announced Friday that the Swedish government has accepted [ICTY statement] its invitation to conduct an audit of the Scheveningen detention unit [BBC backgrounder] outside of The Hague where Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive] died [JURIST report] of a heart attack in mid-March. The audit will cover all areas relating to the management and administration of the unit, but it may not extend to actual conditions of detention, overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Operations at Scheveningen have been independently audited before, but suggestions in the wake of Milosevic's death that security was inadequate and that unauthorized drugs and other substances could be and have been brought into the prison have put pressure on the ICTY to seek this latest review. The speculation surrounding Scheveningen has been made all the more compelling by the possibility of new high-profile detainees arriving there in the future, including former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic [JURIST news archive] if and when he is surrendered, and ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor, presuming his trial is shifted from Sierra Leone [JURIST report] as requested by the Chief Prosecutor of the UN-backed Special Court there. Reuters has more.