Vojislav Seselj: Serbian ultra-nationalist cleared of war crimes over Balkan wars

'Vojislav Seselj is now a free man'

(Getty Images)

The Serbian ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj has been found not guilty of war crimes over the Balkan wars in the 1990s.

Mr Seselj, 61, had been charged with nine counts alleging he was responsible for or incited atrocities by Serbian paramilitaries in the wars in Bosnia and Croatia.

But judges at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague acquitted the politician of all counts after deeming there to be insufficient evidence linking him to the crimes.

Mr Seselj, who served as deputy Prime Minister of Serbia from 1998 to 2000, has denied all charges.

Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti said: "With this acquittal on all the nine counts of the indictment the arrest warrant issued by the appeals chamber is rendered moot."

"Vojislav Seselj is now a free man."

Judge Antonetti accepted that Mr Sedelj "may have had a certain amount of moral authority over his party's volunteers," but he said "they were not his subordinates".

Although Mr Seselj did not attend the hearing, he later said: "After so many proceedings in which Serbs were given draconian punishments, this time two honest judges showed they valued honour more than political pressure."

According to the indictment dated December 2007, he was charged with three counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of war crimes for inciting ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia.

In 2003, Mr Seselj surrendered voluntarily to the ICTY.

The following year he was permitted to return to Belgrade after the tribunal released him on humanitarian grounds due to ill health.

The move to acquit Mr Seselj is likely to boost his Serbian Radical Party ahead of Serbia's general election on 24 April. He is staunchly against the European Union and has campaigned against Serbia joining NATO.