Ambassador kills himself
NATO official jumped from parking garage
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – Serbia’s ambassador to NATO was chatting and joking with colleagues in a multi-storey parking garage at Brussels Airport when he suddenly strolled to a barrier, climbed over and flung himself to the ground below, a diplomat said.
By the time his shocked colleagues reached him, Branislav Milinkovic was dead.
His motives are a mystery. Three diplomats who knew Milinkovic said he did not appear distraught in the hours leading up to his death Tuesday night.
He seemed to be going about his regular business, they said, picking up an arriving delegation of six Serbian officials who were to hold talks with NATO, the alliance that went to war with his country just 13 years ago.
Belgian authorities confirmed that the ambassador had killed himself. “It was indeed a suicide,” said Ine Van Wymersch of the Brussels prosecutor’s office. She said no further investigation was planned.
A former author and activist, Milinkovic was outgoing, had a warm sense of humour and worked to keep good ties with ambassadors from other ex-Yugoslav countries, according to diplomats and acquaintances.
The diplomats said they knew of no circumstances — private or professional — that would have prompted him to take his own life.
But Milinkovic, 52, had mentioned to colleagues at diplomatic functions that he was unhappy about living apart from his wife, a Serbian diplomat based in Vienna, and their 17-year-old son.
One of the diplomats described his death to The Associated Press, saying she had spoken to a member of the delegation who had witnessed the leap from the eightto 10-metre-high platform.
NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he was “deeply saddened by the tragic death of the Serbian ambassador.”