prijava
THE HAGUE/SARAJEVO, April 11 (FENA) - The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Wednesday sentenced Vojislav Šešelj to ten years in prison for inciting crimes in Vojvodina in Serbia during the war.
But the court said that Šešelj’s sentence has already been served because of the time he has spent in custody in The Hague since 2003.
The prosecution’s appeal against Šešelj’s acquittal for wartime crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia was rejected, however, although judge Theodor Meron said there had been mistakes in the first-instance ruling that cleared the nationalist leader, BIRN reports.
Judge Meron said that the first-instance verdict’s finding that there was no widespread and systematic attack against non-Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia was mistaken.
Meron said that a speech by Šešelj in Zvornik in BiH in 1992, in which he appealed to paramilitary volunteers to “clean up” the BiH side of the River Drina, was “a clear call to ethnic cleansing”.
But he said that “a significant period of time” passed between the speech and the crimes that ensued, which is why Šešelj’s acquittal on this count was not overturned.
Šešelj’s speech calling for the expulsion of Croats from the village of Hrtkovci in Serbia’s Vojvodina region constituted “a clear call to incite crimes” however, and there was a clear and immediate consequence, which is why the court sentenced him to ten years, the judge said.
Šešelj, who is an MP in the Serbian parliament, was not present in the courtroom for the verdict.
He was temporarily released for cancer treatment in November 2014 and has refused to return to The Hague since then.
(FENA)
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