Excessive drinking killed Bouterse
Authorities in Suriname have returned the body of former military strongman and ex-president Desi Bouterse to close relatives and to his National Democratic Party (NDP) after learning over the weekend that he had died of liver failure linked to excessive drinking while in hiding from a 20-year prison sentence for mass murder.
The autopsy performed on Bouterse, 79, showed that “that the probable date of death was on Monday or Tuesday. The cause of death was determined to be complication of liver failure in severe liver fibrosis, caused by chronic alcohol use," the report stated.
The former army sergeant major who along with about 15 other comrades had toppled the elected government in a February 1980 coup, had vanished into hiding in January after an appeals court had upheld a 20-year prison sentence for the December 1982 murders of 15 government opponents that the military-led regime had accused of plotting with The Netherlands and other western nations to reverse the coup...