"Order Seselj back in custody immediately"

"Order Seselj back in custody immediately"

THE HAGUE -- The Hague Tribunal prosecution has sent an urgent proposal to the Appeals Chamber on the execution of the decision to end Vojislav Seselj's provisional release.

The proposal was signed by Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz and asks the Appeals Chamber to order the Trial Chamber to revoke its decision on the provisional release "within one day" after deciding on the proposal.

Recalling that on March 30 the Appeals Chamber ordered the Trial Chamber to "immediately" issue an order to revoke the decision on Seselj's provisional release and order him to return to the detention unit, the prosecution claims that two weeks later the Trial Chamber failed to carry it out.

The decision of the Appeals Chamber was unambiguous, said the prosecution, adding that the Trial Chamber was not given the right to decide whether to act on it, or a period of time in which to do so.

However, as pointed out, the Trial Chamber has not yet implemented the decision and instead waited ten days before taking any action - and then only to order the registry to obtain medical information pertaining to Seselj's health.

The prosecution sees this as "undue delay" in carrying out "the unequivocal order of the Appeals Chamber" and adds that Seselj's health condition is "irrelevant for the implementation of the decision," cannot prevent it, considering that his health "should suffer no damage from his return to the Hague."

The leader of the Serb Radical Party (SRS), who was in early 2003 indicted for war crimes and voluntarily surrendered to the tribunal shortly after, is ill with cancer and was granted temporary release on medical grounds last November, after spending more than 11 years in...