Balkan Witness

BALKAN WITNESS

Articles on the Kosovo Conflict

SERBIA: WAR CRIMES ACCUSED ULTRA-NATIONALIST CONTINUES HUNGER STRIKE
December 2006

(AKI) - The leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), Vojislav Seselj, who is on trial for war crimes, went into the 18th day of his hunger strike on Tuesday, as prosecutors wrapped up their case for his indictment before the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Seselj, who was not in court, is charged with war crimes and violations of humanitarian law in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia's Vojvodina province during the last decade Balkan wars. Seselj went on hunger strike on November 10 in protest over being denied the right to defend himself and over restrictions on his wife's visits.

According to ICTY sources his health has seriously deteriorated. SRS officials in Belgrade said the ICTY was killing him deliberately because it had no case against him. Prosecutor, Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff, told the court that she would prove during the trial that Seselj was a part of a joint criminal undertaking and collaborated closely with persons who committed crimes. She said Seseljs paramilitary units committed crimes in the process of fighting for Greater Serbia, whose borders would include parts of Bosnia and Croatia.

Seselj was scheduled to make his plea and introductory statement after the prosecution presented its case, but he has refused to attend the trial until his demands were met. The appeals panel allowed him to defend himself, but assigned a stand-by lawyer, David Hopper, a Briton, to take over the defense if Seselj was disabled or disrupted the trial. He objected to Hooper's appointment and refused to enter the courtroom for the second straight day.

Seselj surrendered to the ICTY in February 2003, saying he would prove his innocence and make a mockery of the court, which he accuses of anti-Serb bias. On Tuesday Hooper declined to make the introductory defence statement, saying he would prefer to leave it to Seselj at same later date. The trial was then adjourned until December 6, when the prosecution will present its first witness.

Seselj, known for his sharp tongue, has said that he was actually being tried for verbal offenses which another prosecutor, David Saxon, came close to admit. The war was waged not only by weapons, but by words as well, he told the court. Seselj wasn't charged directly for crimes committed, but Saxon said that words were used to poison the conscience of the people.

But SRS vice-president Goran Cvetanovic told a press conference in Belgrade that the ICTY was deliberately "killing" Seselj, because the Tribunal has fallen into its own trap called the trial without legal basis.

Cvetanovic said that even prominent American linguist and human rights activist Noam Chomsky has signed a petition in Seselj's support.

More on Chomsky's war-crimes denial and support of Serbian war criminals