War Criminal Drank Poison in Court, and Died. How Could This Happen?

PARIS — The moment was dramatic enough: In a courtroom in The Hague on Wednesday, a military commander from the former Yugoslavia pulled out a small bottle and drank from it, declaring that he had ingested poison to protest his conviction for war crimes. The judges quickly ordered that courtroom curtains block the view of spectators in the public gallery. Live television coverage went dark.

But what happened next, beyond public view, was just as shocking, according to lawyers and court officials. The war criminal, Slobodan Praljak, 72, slumped in his chair and began to gasp for breath. He was later taken to a Dutch hospital and pronounced dead.

On Friday, Dutch prosecutors announced that Mr. Praljak had died of heart failure after ingesting potassium cyanide — a highly toxic compound — and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia announced that it would conduct its own “independent, expert review” of Mr. Praljak’s suicide. But a key question remained unanswered: How did he manage to smuggle the poison into court?

Defense lawyers at the tribunal say the security arrangements in place for defendants like Mr. Praljak, and the five other men whose sentences were affirmed on Wednesday, were rigorous. They were subjected to body searches when they left their detention center — inside a high-security Dutch prison — and again when they arrived at the tribunal building. But, lawyers acknowledged, body-cavity searches were not part of the routine

Even so, that left the question of how Mr. Praljak could have laid hands on the toxin since visitors were supposedly searched, too. And in the months before his final appearance in court, he had seemed to eschew contact with his family and his lawyers.

Nika Pinter, his lead counsel, said in a telephone interview from Zagreb, the Croatian capital, that Mr. Praljak had told his family not to be present at the judgment.

“For 13 years his wife came to visit him in prison every month, the last time I think at the end of October. His stepson and stepdaughter would also visit,” Ms. Pinter said. However, she added, “He forbade his wife to listen to the judgment. And he told her: Don’t come to The Hague.”

Ms. Pinter recalled: “Last weekend I called him and asked him if he would like me to visit him before the judgment. He said: ‘No, don’t come.’ I called again on Tuesday and told him I would come to court early to meet him. He told me: ‘No, don’t come. I’ll see you in the courtroom.’” She said she believed he wanted to spare her from what followed.