Final verdict for Vojislav Šešelj on April 11

THE HAGUE, (Patria) - The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals – the legal successor to the Hague Tribunal – has scheduled the verdict for the leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) Vojislav Šešelj for April 11 this year.

The President of the Mechanism, Theodor Meron, scheduled the verdict for April 11 and stated in his decision that the verdict can be delivered even in the absence of the accused Šešelj, who is at liberty in Serbia.

By a non-final verdict from March 2016, Šešelj was acquitted of charges of persecution on political, racial, and religious grounds, as crimes against humanity in Serbia, Croatia, and BiH.

The verdict established that the creation of "Greater Serbia" was Šešelj's political goal, but that it did not entail the commission of crimes.

The Hague Tribunal released Šešelj on provisional release in November 2014, before the verdict, due to his illness with liver cancer. Šešelj did not attend the delivery of the first-instance verdict.

In December last year, appeals were filed against this verdict, in which prosecutors in The Hague requested the annulment of the acquittal verdict for Šešelj and that he be convicted of crimes in BiH, Croatia, and Vojvodina.

Prosecutor Mathias Marcussen requested that Šešelj be found guilty and sentenced to 28 years in prison, and as an alternative, he proposed a retrial.

Šešelj's proceedings lasted about ten years, and were paused several times for him to be tried for contempt of court, for which he was found guilty.

Vjerica Radeta, an SRS MP in the Serbian Parliament, told the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH) that Šešelj will not attend the verdict.

- He will not go to The Hague. He has said it several times, that he will not return to The Hague - said Radeta.