Seselj Gets Backing for Press Conference

The Hague war crimes trial of the Serbian nationalist politician, Vojislav Seselj, resumed this week after an 11-month delay with the presiding judge endorsing the defendant’s request to hold a telephone press conference from his cell.



Seselj, despite being imprisoned in The Hague for the last seven years, still heads the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, in Belgrade. He asked judges this week to allow him to address the Serbian public ahead of local elections in the Serbian municipality of Odzaci on January 24.



“Everybody is still duty bound to consider me to be an innocent person, including the judges and the prosecutors, and to treat me as such unless proven otherwise,” Seselj told the judges.



“In my active pursuit of political life the [court’s] registry and prison administration have prevented me from contacting the outside world very staunchly, [while] others were allowed to be provisionally released to go into politics.”



According to tribunal rules, the use of communication facilities at the United Nations prison in The Hague to address the media is a matter outside the judges’ hands. Such requests are “subject to the approval of the [court’s] Registrar”, state the rules governing detention procedures.



Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti this week referred Seselj’s request to the court registry which deals with administrative, as opposed to legal matters, at the tribunal. Judge Antonetti gave the defendant his full support.



“The civil and political rights of an accused are part and parcel of the presumption of innocence. The fact you have been in detention does not automatically imply the fact that you can be deprived of your rights,” Judge Antonetti told Seselj.



“This tribunal is prefaced to re-establish peace within the former Yugoslavia and in the framework of the establishment of peace legal political parties play an important role, an essential role actually. The accused, Seselj, is the leader of a legal political party in Serbia and as such he could play a role in this respect,” the judge added.



The registry issued a decision to Seselj confidentially on January 14. According to a report by Serbia’s B92 station, SRS official Aleksandar Martinović told the country’s Tanjug news agency that the registry had denied Seselj’s request. The court spokeswoman, Nerma Jelacic, could not comment on which way the registry had ruled.



However, ahead of the registry’s ruling, Judge Antonetti had implied that its decision would not necessarily be final.



“If the accused cannot be allowed to do what he wishes to do through the registrar and through the president [of the tribunal] he can always see the trial chamber,” he told Seselj. “I will be in favour of allowing him to talk to the media in the framework of these local elections held in Serbia.”



According to the tribunal spokeswoman, Judge Antonetti and his fellow trial judges could allow Seselj, if requested, to appeal the decision to the court’s president. However, according to caselaw established by the tribunal's appeals chamber, trial judges may only intervene on matters assigned to the registry if they impinge on a defendant's right to a fair trial.



Seselj has been in custody in The Hague since surrendering to the court in February 2003. His trial got underway in November 2006 but he did not appear and went on hunger strike. The trial began again on November 7, 2007 but was suspended on February 11, 2009 at the prosecution’s request, amid allegations that its witnesses were being intimidated. Seselj and his legal advisers in Serbia have denied intimidating witnesses.



Subsequent to the trial’s suspension, Seselj was convicted of contempt of court in July 2009 for revealing the names and personal details of protected witnesses in a book he published from his cell. He was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment. Seselj’s appeal of the judgement is still pending.



In December 2003, the registry curbed Seselj’s communication with the outside world from the United Nations detention unit after he directly contacted the media in Serbia ahead of parliamentary elections. On that occasion, Seselj’s actions were deemed unhelpful in the tribunal’s pursuit of justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia.



“The fact that a detainee at the Detention Unit can communicate with the aid of facilities provided by the Detention Unit to participate in an ongoing Serbian parliamentary elections campaign is such an occasion that is likely to frustrate the Tribunal’s mandate,” read the deputy registrar’s decision to revoke Seselj’s contact with those other than his lawyers and immediate family.



Seselj is charged with nine counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities carried out between August 1991 and September 1993 in an effort to expel the non-Serb population from parts of Croatia and Bosnia. Charges include murder, torture, cruel treatment and forcible transfer. He is representing himself in The Hague.



According to the indictment, Seselj’s bid to create a so-called Greater Serbia was part of a joint criminal enterprise which involved senior figures in the Serbian regime, including late president Slobodan Milosevic and former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic.



The prosecution called one of its few remaining witnesses to testify this week. The testimony of the former official with the Serbian Democratic Party in Zvornik was heard largely in closed session.



The protected witness testified under the pseudonym VS037 and with face distortion measures, giving evidence about the situation in the municipality of Zvornik in 1992.



According to the indictment, in April that year “Serb forces, including volunteers known as ‘Seselj’s men’ and ‘Arkan’s Tigers’ attacked and took control of the town of Zvornik and surrounding villages”. During 1992, Serb forces, including Seselj’s men, allegedly killed scores of non-Serb detainees in the area.



The witness told the court that the town of Zvornik was important in creating a Serb area in Bosnia.



“Zvornik certainly had strategic significance due to the fact that the municipality is on the border with Serbia...there was a power plant and there was a railroad linking Serbia to Bosnia,” the witness said.



VS037 also testified that weapons were given to Serbs in Zvornik by the territorial defence to whom volunteers reported on arrival in the town.



In his statement given to investigators in December 2008, the witness had explained that most of the men who arrived at the crisis staff in Zvornik said they had been organised by the SRS and Seselj. However, he could not confirm this in court this week.



“I may have said that, but do believe me we saw volunteers and we never asked them who had organised them and why they were coming,” the witness said.



Asked by the judges if he was able to distinguish by their uniforms where the men had come from and who had sent them, the witness said the men had all arrived in civilian clothes.



“There were no members of the Serbian Radical Party or any other party,” he said. “They came as citizens and they were mobilised into the [territorial defence] of the Serbian municipality of Zvornik. We did not know whether they belonged to any party.”



The court then went into closed session to discuss the witness’ earlier comments recorded as part of his statement to investigators.



The judges are set to call six of the eleven remaining prosecution witnesses as court witnesses and they have asked the prosecution to consider dropping three others.



Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.