Trial of Serb politician to resume at UN war crimes tribunal in January 2010

The United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the worst war crimes committed during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s has ordered that the trial of Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Šešelj, which had been adjourned in February amid allegations that witnesses had been intimidated, resume on 12 January 2010.

The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) decided yesterday to reconsider its decision for adjournment, because of what it said were new facts that had emerged, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters in New York.

Mr. Šešelj has pleaded not guilty to nine charges, including murder, torture and persecution, relating to his alleged role in an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Vojvodina region of Serbia between 1991 and 1993.

In July he was given a 15-month jail term after the ICTY found him guilty, in a separate trial, of contempt of court for publishing the names of three protected witnesses in his war crimes trial in a book he wrote.

He said he did not reveal the witnesses’ names with the intention of intimidating them, but rather to “unmask a plot in public” regarding some events in the indictment for his war crimes trial.

But the Tribunal said it was gravely concerned with “the deliberate way in which the protective measure decisions” concerning the witnesses had been defied by Mr. Šešelj.