The Serbian ultra-nationalist leader Vojislav Seselj, is still awaiting trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia since February 2002. He is to be tried for murder, torture and other crimes allegedly committed in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia between 1991 and 1993.
Despite the seriousness of the charges against him, Seselj was sentenced to time for contempt of court, three times. Last week, the ICTY ordered his release on bail for health reasons.
60 years old, Šešelj has cancer. Weakened, yet it has not lost its firmness. Back in Serbia, he has already promised to overthrow the power its former allies, now President and Prime Minister of the country.
Šešelj had left Belgrade for the Netherlands in February 2003, to loud applause fully supporting its cause crowd. The former deputy prime minister and former militia leader made voluntarily to the ICTY, saying it would be the last to appear in Serbian. The various charges against him had nothing damaged his popularity.
Two days before his departure, he delivered a defiant speech, galvanized by its fresh and triumphant re-election as head of the Serbian Radical Party. He founded the party in 1991 and is still the leader.
"I am proud to defend the interests of more than 10,000 volunteers of the party that fought for a worthy cause on the forehead," then said Šešelj.
Volunteers in question, it is "Seseljevci" Šešelj's men literally, a paramilitary group whose mission was to defend the Serbian nationalist cause in Bosnia and Croatia after the outbreak of war.
Persecutions, deportation, murder, torture, all means were good to achieve the ultimate goal of ethnic cleansing that would eradicate the presence of Bosniacs and Croats in what Šešelj and his nationalist friends wanted to see it become "The Great Serbia ".
"We will meet the Republic of Serbia, Republic of Montenegro, Republika Srpska and Krajiana. We will create a greater Serbia, "chanted Šešelj.
Charismatic orator and populist, manipulative, virulent, Šešelj is also known for his verbal and physical excess. A man that former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic sometimes termed "preferred opponent", sometimes "primitive violent."
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