Briefly Noted

Seselj Trial to Resume

Case was adjourned while the court ruled on whether he should continue to represent himself.

By Simon Jennings in The Hague (TU No 569, 19-Sep-08)

The trial of the leading Serb politician, Vojislav Seselj, is set to resume next week after it was suspended at the prosecution’s request.

Proceedings will begin again on September 23 when prosecutors will continue to present their case against the accused.

Judges suspended the trial on August 26 after prosecutors called for proceedings to be adjourned while the trial chamber rules on the issue of self-representation.

The prosecutors argued that the accused’s right to the latter had to be withdrawn and that a defence lawyer should be assigned to him.

“[A] defence counsel must be assigned because the accused is substantially and persistently obstructing the proceedings of this trial, both in and out of court,” prosecutors said in their request filed on July 29 .

Seselj, who remains the leader of the Serbian Radical Party in Serbia while in detention in The Hague, is accused of using his self-representation to champion his political opinions in the courtroom and intimidate witnesses.

The trial chamber is yet to decide on the prosecution’s request to assign a defence counsel to the accused but the appeals chamber ruled this week that the trial should continue in the meantime. A tribunal spokesperson was not able to shed any light on when the judges’ decision will be published.

The trial chamber has been in a similar position before when it assigned counsel to Seselj in November 2006.

It ruled then that the accused was “substantially and persistently obstructing the proper and expeditious proceedings in this case”. However, Seselj’s response was to go on hunger strike until the decision to assign him counsel was overturned by the appeals chamber.

In their request to the trial chamber on July 29, prosecutors submitted that it should ignore any threats made by Seselj to go on hunger strike again.

“This chamber cannot consider the threat to go on hunger strike as a reason to deny the motion. Rather it is but one more example of the accused trying to wrest control from the chamber and obstruct the proceedings,” they submitted.

Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.