Lawyer warns that ICTY ruling sentences Serb leader prematurely

May 5, 2011, 8:47 GMT

Belgrade - A ruling that enough evidence exists to link a Serb nationalist with war crimes linked to the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia amounts to a guilty verdict before the trial even ends, a lawyer warned the plaintiff's attorney Thursday.

Vojislav Seselj, 56, is on trial for war crimes against non-Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. He had sought an acquittal and release from detention, arguing that prosecutors have not presented sufficient evidence.

But a three-judge panel of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) decided Wednesday that prosecutors have adequately linked Seselj to the alleged crimes. The ruling means Seselj will remain in detention until his trial, which started in 2007, ends.

He has been in detention since he surrendered himself in 2003.

'This decision is a precedent, because they practically delivered a verdict halfway through the trial,' Serbian lawyer Branislav Tapuskovic told the daily Blic.

'They judged the evidence and issued a verdict about it ... they could have only said it suffices to continue the trial,' said Tapuskovic, who served as ICTY's amici curiae, or friend of the court, in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

Seselj stands charged as a part of a joint criminal enterprise, headed by Milosevic, which allegedly sought to expel Croats, Muslims and other non-Serbs from territories in northern Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia between 1991 and 1993.

The ICTY charged Milosevic with genocide for his role in the Yugoslav wars, but the former Serbian and Yugoslav president died of a heart attack in 2006, before the verdict could be delivered.

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