An autopsy will be carried out soon on a Bosnian Croat war criminal who took his own life apparently by drinking poison in front of UN judges, Dutch prosecutors said Thursday.

"The autopsy is our priority... it will be carried out very shortly," Frans Zonneveld, spokesman for the Dutch prosecution in The Hague, told AFP. He also revealed that a "chemical product which can cause death" had been found in the bottle which Slobodan Praljak had tipped into his mouth during his appeals hearing at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.