THE HAGUE: Serbian ultra-nationalist leader Vojislav Seselj declined to plead at The Hague yesterday to charges of ethnic cleansing, emulating the courtroom defiance of his ally, Slobodan Milosevic.
Mr Seselj, a burly nationalist who came second in last December's Serbian presidential election, reserved the right to enter his plea within 30 days of his first appearance in court after asking prosecutors to clarify the indictment against him.
"I will enter a plea in 30 days if in the meantime the prosecution explain to me the terms I am not familiar with," he told the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Mr Seselj, who has dismissed the 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia between 1991-93 against him as "fake", has followed in former Yugoslav president Milosevic's footsteps by opting to defend himself.
Mr Milosevic has been on trial at the Hague since February last year, charged with crimes against humanity and genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during his 13-year rule. The former Serb strongman had vigorously denied the charges.
There were echoes of Mr Milosevic's defiance during Mr Seselj's first appearance in court.
The former paramilitary leader refused to stand up when Judge Wolfgang Schomburg entered the court, insisted on the charges being read in full and complained of translation errors as he listened to the indictment being read out on his headphones. "I insist that the indictment be read in its entirety in accordance with rule 62," Mr Seselj said of a 30-page document listing dozens of victims of killings in Croatia and Bosnia.
The latest of Mr Milosevic's allies to face trial at the UN court, the 48-year-old head of the Serbian Radical Party has denied committing war crimes.
The former paramilitary leader, who said during the war in Croatia that the enemy should have their eyes gouged out with rusty spoons, is reviled by Croats and Muslims while inspiring devotion among his hardline Serb nationalist supporters. The charges accuse him of "murder, extermination, persecution, torture and cruel treatment" in a bid to create a "Greater Serbia" during the bloody break-up of the six republics of the communist former Yugoslavia at the end of the Cold War.
- (Reuters)