Former Bosnian Muslim leader Izetbegovic dies

Former Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic, who led the Balkan country through a turbulent decade of war and peace in the 1990s, died in Sarajevo yesterday, aged 78.

Doctors said Izetbegovic died from chronic heart disease and complications after he fell at home last month and broke four ribs.

"He was in a real sense the father of his people," said Paddy Ashdown, the West's top peace envoy in Bosnia. "Without him I doubt if Bosnia and Herzegovina would exist today."

Izetbegovic was the last to leave office of the three rival Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian Muslim leaders who signed the Dayton peace treaty that ended the 1992-95 war.

Former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic is facing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity at a UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Former Croatian nationalist leader Franjo Tudjman died in 1999.

Izetbegovic, who suffered a heart attack in 1996, quit politics in 2000.