VOJISLAV SESELJ - DAY 8: SARAJEVO WAR RECORD
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - September 5, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Vojislav Seselj's marathon testimony entered its eighth day at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Monday. Dr. Seselj testified about his activities in Bosnia and defended himself from the testimony of expert witness Mirsad Kucanin who testified for the prosecution regarding incidents of sniping in Sarajevo.

On November 13, 2003 the prosecution's so-called "expert witness" testified that Seselj had killed a Bosnian-Serb named Mile Vasiljevic on the basis that he had seen Seselj on television the day that Vasiljevic was shot. Of course Mr. Kucanin did not see Seselj shoot Vasiljevic, nor did he do any ballistic analysis to determine where the shots that killed Vasiljevic came from, which doesn't matter anyway since he didn't know where Seselj was at the time of the shooting.

Seselj testified today that he was in Grbavica during the war, and that on one occasion he was involved in the combat activities there. He said that he saw the Muslims digging a trench to bypass the Bosnian-Serb lines. He testified that he opened fire on the trench with a machine gun while it was being dug, but didn't know if he managed to hit anybody.

If he did kill somebody Seselj said "I am satisfied if I have killed some Muslim soldier." But if the victim was a civilian or a Serb who was being forced to dig trenches for the Muslims, then responsibility would lie with “those who took him there to dig trenches, in violation of international humanitarian law” Seselj said.

At any rate, Seselj didn't know if he hit anybody, and Kucanin's basis for accusing him in the first place was flimsy at best.

Most of the day today was spent going over individual incidents listed in the Bosnian portion of the indictment, Seselj commented where he could, but the main thrust of his testimony was that Serbia was not involved in the war.

Seselj repeated again that he had absolutely nothing to do with the so-called "White Eagles" paramilitary group. He said that all of the Serbian Radical Party's volunteers were members of the regular Bosnian-Serb army (VRS), and were all subordinated corps command of the army -- not to him or to anybody else in Serbia.

Seselj, denied that the Government of Serbia played any role in the combat operations in Bosnia. He said that paramilitary groups, such as those led by Arkan and Mauser, had absolutely nothing to do with Milosevic, or the Government of Serbia. In fact he said that the Government of Serbia took steps to crack-down on paramilitary groups, and prosecuted them whenever possible.

Seselj will continue his testimony when the trial resumes on Tuesday.

# # #