Loyal supporters of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday paid tribute to the late strongman on the fourth anniversary of his death in UN custody.

Defying freezing tempertures and snow, dozens of people laid flowers at Milosevic's tomb within the compound his family home in Pozarevac, an industrial town 70 kilometres (40 miles) east of Belgrade.

Infrastructure Minister Milutin Mrkonjic, heading a delegation from Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), laid a wreath, Beta news agency reported. The SPS is now in a coalition government with Milosevic's political arch enemies from the Democratic Party.

None of Milosevic family was present. His widow Mira Markovic and their son, Marko, live in Russia having fled Serbia several years ago, after pro-democracy forces came to power.

Milosevic's successor as head of the SPS, Ivica Dacic, the deputy prime minister and interior minister, did not come to Pozarevac citing other obligations but insisted the party remained true to Milosevic.

"The SPS that I am leading has not renounced Milosevic but the fact is that the SPS has reformed," Dacic told Press daily.

Asked what would have Milosevic said seeing the SPS in the coalition government, Dacic said: "It is a tough question, but I am confident that Milosevic would have taken similar decisions."

The Democratic Party headed an 18-party opposition group that organised an uprising which led to the ouster of Milosevic on October 5, 2000, after a decade of wars and iron-fisted rule.

Democratic Party leader and reformist prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2001 handed over Milosevic to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Milosevic died on March 11, 2006 in a cell of the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), shortly before his trial for war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo was to end. He was 64.

(Source: AFP)