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Serbian Ultra Nationalist Seselj Acquitted At The Hague

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the Hague, has found Serbian far-right nationalist Vojislav Seselj, whose volunteers helped to start the war in Croatia in 1991, not guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The former Serbian deputy Prime Minister was charged by ICTY with crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia in 1990s Royal Gazette reports: It isn’t the “not guilty” verdict that is shocking or necessarily wrong; it is the tribunal’s reasoning, which contradicts much of what this court has taught us about the war over the past two decades. The verdict comes just days after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to 40 years in jail for war crimes he committed during the attempt to create a Greater Serbia by clearing the territory of non-Serbs. The big difference between the two men is that Karadzic was in charge. He had a clear chain of command through which his orders could be carried out. Seselj’s position, as a Belgrade parliamentarian who sent volunteers to fight at the front, was less clear-cut. So the prosecution may well have failed to demonstrate Seselj’s direct responsibility [...]