Šešelj blasts CoE resolution

Šešelj blasts CoE resolution

On the other hand, the decision of the Security Council that all first-instance trials must end by December 31, 2008, “was in force and the Tribunal could not count on its mandate being extended.”

According to pre-trial Judge Antonetti, Vojislav Šešelj’s trial could start on November seventh with the prosecutor’s opening statement.

The accused could then respond the next day, if he so wished.

Šešelj, however, thinks it is “absolutely impossible because not all procedural conditions have been met.” He announced Wednesday in a Hague courtroom he would be filing a new preliminary motion against the amended indictment, and would appeal against any rulings of the Trial Chamber rejecting the motion.

In his opinion, the trial could not start before March 2008, and it must end before December 31, 2008—this is the date when all the first-instance trials must end, in accordance with a Security Council resolution.

Noting that Russia insisted on strict adherence to this deadline, Šešelj warned the Tribunal “not to count on its mandate being extended” just because his trial had not ended.

“This is out of the question,” the accused stated categorically.

At the status conference today, Šešelj called upon Judge Antonetti to “reject with indignation” the resolution passed by Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe last week.

The resolution urges the Tribunal to set the trial date for the accused Serbian Radicals’ leader as soon as possible. According to Šešelj, this resolution is part of an effort by the Council of Europe to “exert political pressure on the Tribunal” and the purpose is to have him “convicted and eliminated as a political fact on this planet as soon as possible”.

It is unclear whether Šešelj ascribed the same goal to his followers in Serbia, because the appeal to try Šešelj as soon as possible was put into the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe precisely at the initiative of the members from the Serb Radical Party (SRS), and the Serbian Socialist Party.

The next status conference in the Vojislav Šešelj case has been scheduled for August 17.

The Hague Tribunal has indicted Vojislav Šešelj of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war in Croatia, Bosnia, and Vojvodina during the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia.