On July 24 the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia convicted leader of Serbia's Radical Party Vojislav Seselj of contempt of court. He was sentenced to 15 months in jail, which sounds ridiculous considering that Prof. Seselj has been in custody awaiting trial for almost 7 years. In reality the indictment is likely to become a death sentence as it is indicative of the Hague Tribunal's intention to physically eliminate V. Seselj.
The conviction resulted from charges against Seselj pressed in the process of a different trial which opened over 2 years ago but was suspended indefinitely because the case was compromised by threats against a witness. What was regarded as contempt of court by the Hague Tribunal? According to the prosecution V. Seselj revealed the names of three protected witnesses in a book he authored (the title of the book was not disclosed). Generally most legal systems recognize the institute of protected witnesses since under certain circumstances it may be warranted not to release their identities. However, the Hague Tribunal resorts to protected witnesses simply whenever it makes it easier for the prosecution to accomplish its objectives, especially in the cases where the testimony supplied by them is obviously untrue. Disproving false testimony in the cases undertaken by the Hague Tribunal is oftentimes a challenging task as those who face charges (former presidents and ministers, for example) had not been to the sites of the alleged crimes and have no way of assessing the accuracy of the witnesses' accounts of events that happened in places like small villages or even do not know whether the events actually happened. Under the circumstances the only means of defense is to assess the credibility of witnesses, but for that the defendants have to know who the witnesses are. For example, if a witness was personally involved in the criminal acts and is directly interested in shifting the blame onto others his testimony should probably be discarded or witnesses be impeached.
Most of the witnesses employed by the Hague Tribunal are criminals or individuals with a vested interest in a particular indictment. To make it more difficult for the defense to disprove the testimonies supplied by such individuals the Hague Tribunal uses protected witnesses, who would be more adequately described as secret witnesses as actually they do not need protection. Most of the witnesses who testified against V. Seselj were protected.
The new trial – the one dealing with contempt of court – took just three hours! The prosecutor's speech lasted several minutes, and he supplied to the panel just a few translated excerpts from Seselj's book. V. Seselj demanded that the entire book be presented to the panel as it takes reading it throughout to understand what it is about. Seselj cited the Cardinal de Richelieu who wrote: “Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him”. The prosecutor insisted on limiting the examination to the selected excerpts. Judge Kwon who presided over the trial acted with his usual "professionalism" – he ruled to accept the whole book as evidence but said it did not have to be translated.
Seselj said: “Let us stage a small experiment to demonstrate that the prosecutor has no idea what my book is about. For example, how many mentionings of the name of judge I. Bonomy (the panel member) does the book contain? Look how restless he is in his chair – obviously he does not know the answer. He does not know because nobody told him, and he never read the book personally and just got several excerpts. If he had read the book he'd see that it was by no means written to reveal the names of witnesses. Bonomy is mentioned four times because he took part in issuing indictments on the cases in which the witnesses were involved”.
Only a redacted version of the indictment was released because some passages in its original text were confidential. In other words, the Hague Tribunal denies the public access even to the minimally necessary information, and we are supposed to simply trust the judges who found Seselj guilty. We strongly object to such treatment and are going to analyze the pertinent facts which are currently within reach.
As mentioned above, the title of the “criminal” book is kept secret. V. Seselj authored over a hundred books, at least twenty of them after being taken in custody by the Hague Tribunal. The attempt to conceal the title is a Kafkian absurdity. Judge Kwon kept reminding the prosecutor during the hearings to avoid invoking any facts that might help identify it, but the exceptionally unprofessional prosecutor nevertheless aired all the information it takes to identify the book – the number of pages in it and even where it could be found. The number of pages is 1,400 and the book is posted on Seselj site. The only book on Seselj's site containing 1,400 pages is the «Афера Хртковци и усташка курва Наташа Кандић» (The Hrtkovci Affair and the Ustasha Whore Nataša Kandić).
What prompted Seselj to write the book? Some of the charges against Seselj brought by the Hague Tribunal were related to the events which took place in Hrtkovci, Serbia – which is outside of the Tribunal's jurisdiction. The Tribunal's jurisdiction encompasses the countries plagued by armed conflicts, but there were no armed conflicts in Serbia except for the 1999 NATO aggression (which the Hague Tribunal must be too shy to investigate). Consequently, the Hague Tribunal's jurisdiction does not apply to Hrtkovci. Violating its own Statute the Tribunal stated that the events in Hrtkovci were related to the armed conflict in Croatia and thus it has jurisdiction in case. In the framework of such logics the jurisdiction of the Hague Tribunal should have no limits whatsoever – it is enough to say that the events in a country of choice were somehow related to those in the former Yugoslavia. The illegality of keeping the charges related to Hrtkovci was obvious and Seselj submitted an appeal and enclosed with it a documented historical study of the events in Hrtkovci. The Tribunal rejected the appeal and refused to have Seselj's study translated. Then Seselj published it as a book to expose the Hague Tribunal's disregard for law.
Seselj proved in the book that witnesses ready to provide false testimony were needed to present the events as not confined to Serbia. He scrupulously collected practically all the pertinent materials and restored the chronological order of the events. Mentioning a number of individuals who happened to be protected witnesses was quite natural in the context and could not be avoided as all of them were public figures involved. The fact that they acted as protected witnesses in the future was never revealed by Seselj. If Seselj's plan was to intimidate the protected witnesses by disclosing their identities he would have easily found a way to do so other than writing a historical treatise.
The arguments invoked by the prosecutor charging Seselj with the “crime” can be attributed only to his lack of proficiency in legal affairs and expertise. Dealing with a fairly simple case the prosecutor failed to outline the subjective aspect of the crime, did not prove that any consequences ensued, and even neglected to read thoroughly the only document on which the case was based. Considering that it took the prosecutor over half a year to put the case together, one can only say that prosecutor MacFarlane is totally unprofessional.
What brought to life the absurd idea of pressing charges for writing a book? The answer is straightforward – the main case against Seselj had led to a spectacular failure of the Hague Tribunal. The prosecution had only four hours left to finish the process of presenting charges when the trial was unexpectedly suspended because the identities of the witnesses who already finished testifying were allegedly revealed some 18 months ago. Actually the testimony was easily disproved by Seselj during the cross-examination of these witnesses. Now the Hague tribunal's only remaining option is to deny Seselj the right to defend himself. Otherwise he is going not only to disprove the charges but also to prove that the prosecution prepared false testimony. The developments would more than just ruin one case – it would be a blow to the whole Hague Tribunal. Previously, S. Milosevic was the only individual who was close to accomplishing this. The only way to stop him was to kill him. Obviously, now the Hague Tribunal needs to stop Seselj.
The trial chamber sentenced Seselj to 15 months in jail. At first glance, the move seems absurd given that Seselj had been in custody for almost 7 years, but in reality this may be an attempt to hand out a death sentence to the Serbian politician.
Facing the panel for the first time in February, 2003 Seselj responded to the judge's repeated questions whether his decision to be his own defender remained unchanged by saying: “I don't understand your attempts to keep asking the same question after I have answered it. I will take the role of my defender and I swear with my life that I will not change the decision”. Perhaps at that time few people believed that swearing with life was more than just words, but when a defender was appointed against Seselj's will, he proved it was serious: he went on a hunger strike which continued for 30 days and ended only after the panel reinstated his right to defend himself personally. Seselj realizes that he – and no defender – can ruin the Hague Tribunal. The indictment implicitly contains a reason to revoke Seselj's right to defend himself on the basis of allegations that he did not comply with his obligations and can no longer be allowed to do so. Seselj is cornered – he will start another hunger strike when a сounsel will be imposed on him. The Hague Tribunal hopes that it will end with Seselj's death.
A different verdict could not be expected from the Hague Tribunal's judges Kwon and I. Bonomy who participated in the assassination of Slobodan Milosevic as well as K. Parker who “investigated” the death of Yugoslavia's last president. Kwon is the judge who confirmed the indictment against Seselj in 2003 and issued the arrest warrant. The trial showed that actually there was no evidence implicating Seselj and in 2003 Kwon confirmed unsubstantiated charges. He is personally interested in having Seselj convicted at any cost.
The Hague Tribunal's judges must know: we realize that a new crime against Seselj is going to be committed and warn the international community about the plan. People! The Hague Tribunal is planning a new assassination!
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