BRUSSELS, March 17 (Xinhuanet) -- There is no indication that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was poisoned, according to preliminary toxicology findings announced by the United Nations (UN) war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Friday.

    "A number of medicines prescribed for Mr. Milosevic were found in the body material, but not in toxic concentration," said the provisional report of the Netherlands Forensic Institute.

    The toxicological tests carried out after the autopsy on March 12 revealed no traces of rifampicine, Judge Fausto Pocar, president of The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), told a news conference.

    Earlier this week, a Dutch toxicologist said that he found traces of Rifampicin in Milosevic's blood in January this year. This would have counteracted medicines he was taking for high blood pressure.

    But the Netherlands Forensic Institute noted that rifampicine disappears from the body quickly, and the fact that no traces were found implies only that it is not likely that rifampicine had been ingested or administered in the last few days before death.

    Pocar stressed it was an interim report, and that the investigation into the death was not closed.

    Pocar said an outside investigation of the conditions at the tribunal's prison near The Hague had been ordered after revelations that alcohol and unprescribed drugs were found repeatedly in Milosevic's cell and private prison office.

    "How would it be possible to smuggle in drugs?" asked Hans Holthuis, the chief administrator of the tribunal and its prison. "That is, indeed, the burning question, and I have no ready answer to that."

    Milosevic's cell was regularly searched, and when contraband was found, "we acted in a proper way," he said.

    Milosevic had been held in the prison since he was transferred to the court in The Hague in June 2001. He was found dead on his bed in his cell on March 11.

    The preliminary post-mortem report showed Milosevic died of a heart failure. A team of Russian doctors, who flew to The Hague earlier this week to examine the autopsy results, have confirmed the findings of Dutch doctors and ruled out poisoning as the cause of death.

    But the Russian doctors said Milosevic's death was preventable if he had been given appropriate treatment. Milosevic's son Marko has insisted that his father had been killed.

    Milosevic "received the best possible treatment," Pocar said.

    "I have full confidence in the professionalism" of the prison and its staff, which underwent frequent independent inspections, he said. Enditem