Momir Bulatovic, who was the president of Montenegro during the turbulent breakup of the former Yugoslavia, died Sunday at age 62, a close associate said.
Bulatovic died at his family's home near the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica, Milan Knezevic told The Associated Press. Knezevic, a longtime associate of the former president, said Bolatovic apparently had a heart attack.
Bulatovic served as Montenegro's president from 1990 until 1998.
He was an ally of then-Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who is widely seen as the main instigator of the ethnic wars that followed the breakup of the former Yugoslav federation.
Bulatovic was a founder of Montenegro's ruling Democratic Party of Socialists along with the country's long-serving leader, Milo Djukanovic.
But the two split when Djukanovic turned away from Milosevic to eventually lead Montenegro to independence in 2006.
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In the early 1990s, Montenegro sided with Serbia in the ethnic wars that tore the former Yugoslavia apart. During the 1992-95 Croatian war, Montenegrin troops participated in the Yugoslav army's shelling of the ancient Adriatic walled city of Dubrovnik, drawing international condemnation.
Following the split with Djukanovic, Bulatovic remained staunchly pro-Serb and in 1998 assumed the post of the prime minister of then-Yugoslavia, which at the time included only Serbia and Montenegro after other nations split away.
Bulatovic recently took part in protests by the pro-Serb opposition in Montenegro against the country's 2017 membership in NATO.
Knezevic, an opposition politician, said Bulatovic "left a permanent trace in the Montenegrin politics as a man who fought for his beliefs until the last day."