Slobodan Milošević (August 20, 1941 – March 11, 2006) is a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who serves as the President of Serbia (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) from 1989 to 1991 and within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1991-1997, and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000.

He leads the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990 and rises to power as Serbian President during efforts to reform the 1974 Constitution of Yugoslavia in response to alleged marginalization of Serbia.

Milošević's presidency of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is marked by several major reforms to Serbia's constitution from the 1980s to the 1990s that reduce the powers of the autonomous provinces in Serbia.

In 1990, Serbia transitions from a Titoist one-party system to a multi-party system and attempted reforms to the 1974 Constitution of Yugoslavia.

The constituent republics of the country split apart amid the outbreak of wars, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is founded by the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro.

During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Milošević is charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with war crimes in connection to the wars in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo.

He becomes the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes.

During the 1990s, numerous anti-government and anti-war protests take place.
Milošević resigns from the Yugoslav presidency amid demonstrations following the disputed presidential election of September 24, 2000, and he is arrested by Yugoslav federal authorities on March 31, 2001 on suspicion of corruption, abuse of power, and embezzlement.

The initial investigation into Milošević falters for lack of evidence, prompting the Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić to extradite him to the ICTY to stand trial for charges of war crimes instead.

At the outset of the trial, Milošević denounces the Tribunal as illegal because it has not been established with the consent of the United Nations General Assembly; therefore he refuses to appoint counsel for his defense.

Milošević conducts his own defense in the five-year-long trial, which ends without a verdict when he dies in his prison cell in The Hague on March 11, 2006.

Milošević suffers from heart ailments and hypertension, and dies of a heart attack.

The Tribunal denies any responsibility for Milošević's death and states that he had refused to take prescribed medicines and medicated himself instead.

After Milošević's death, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will conclude separately in the Bosnian Genocide Case that there is no evidence linking him to genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian War.

However, the Court will find that Milošević and others in Serbia had committed a breach of the Genocide Convention by failing to prevent the genocide from occurring and for not cooperating with the ICTY in punishing the perpetrators of the genocide, in particular General Ratko Mladić, and for violating its obligation to comply with the provisional measures ordered by the Court.

Milošević's rule will be described by observers as authoritarian or autocratic, as well as kleptocratic, with numerous accusations of electoral frauds, political assassinations, suppression of press freedom and police brutality.