Josip Broz Tito’s relatives await news of inheritance

For 35 years since the death of Communist Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, tens of thousands of the extravagant strongman’s belongings have been the subject of legal wrangling.

In January, a Serbian court is finally expected to rule on the inheritance of his huge and eclectic range of possessions, from hunting rifles and paintings to Marshal uniforms and even stones from the moon — a gift from US President Richard Nixon.

During his time at the helm of socialist Yugo-slavia from the end of the World War II until his de-ath in 1980, Tito and his wife Jovanka enjoyed a lifestyle that impressed even Hollywood star Rich-ard Burton, who visited the pair in 1971. “They live in remarkable luxury un-matched by anything else I’ve seen and (I) can well believe Princess Margaret who says the whole business makes Buck House look pretty middle-class,” Burton wrote in his diar-ies, referring to the Brit-ain’s Buckingham Palace.

But today the extent of Tito’s assets to be divided up by the court remains unclear, even to relatives who await news of their inheritance: his son Mis-ha, the four children of his late son Zarko and two of the late Jovanka’s sisters. “There is no written document in which the court establishes what is to be inherited,” Svetlana Broz, one of Zarko’s daughters, told AFP. “We do not know what that will be until we receive the ruling,” she said.

When Tito died, precipitating the slow and bloody break-up of Yugoslavia, his possessions were estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars.

In 1985, a law declared all of his belongings state property — a ruling that was later annulled after it was challenged by Jovanka, who died in 2013.

But a clear division between what Tito owned privately and what he used as the country’s top official was never made.

Proceedings were slowed down by the 1990s Balkan wars, and some of Tito’s property went to countries that emerged after Yugoslavia fell apart. His family alleges widespread theft in the intervening years. “Eexpensive watches, cars, weapons disappeared,” Jovanka’s lawyer Toma Fila said.