SRS: ICTY subjects Seselj to inhuman treatment

BELGRADE - Nemanja Sarovic, deputy leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), claims that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has subjected SRS leader Vojislav Seselj to inhuman treatment, as after the recent surgery, he was put in isolation in the prison hospital.

Sarovic told a news conference on Tuesday that Seselj underwent the surgery on December 18, which passed off successfully, after which he received the first chemotherapy on February 4, and added that, according to the decision delivered by the ICTY Secretariat and prison hospital, he has to spend seven days in isolation because “he allegedly poses a danger to other prisoners”.

"Vojislav Seselj did not get the decision about his isolation in writing, and he does not even know whether such a decision exists at all, and what the reasoning behind it is. This is not a regular procedure, and has no medical grounds," Sarovic said.

He noted that Seselj is not the first prisoner of the ICTY who is ill with cancer, but he is certainly the first one to be put in isolation.

"It is evident that the reasons for the isolation of Vojislav Seselj are political and deeply inhuman, as well as the entire proceedings against Seselj before the ICTY," Sarovic said.

SRS leader Vojislav Seselj has been held in the ICTY detention unit for more than 11 years, under the indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina.

Photo Tanjug, F. Kraincanic (archive)