Updated

Dutch prosecutors say that an autopsy will be carried out soon on a former Bosnian Croatian general who died shortly after swallowing liquid he said was poison during an appeals hearing at a United Nations war crimes tribunal.

Frans Zonneveld of the Public Prosecution Service in The Hague said Thursday it wasn't clear exactly when the autopsy will take place on Slobodan Praljak.

The 72-year-old stunned the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Wednesday when he gulped down liquid from a small bottle seconds after a U.N. appeals judge had confirmed a 20-year sentence against him.

Praljak was convicted in 2013 of crimes including murder, persecution and deportation for his role in a plan to carve out a Bosnian Croat ministate in Bosnia in the early 1990s.