UN court acquits Serb ultranationalist of all counts

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — In a sweeping defeat for U.N. prosecutors, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquitted Serbian ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj on Thursday of all nine counts alleging that he was responsible for or incited atrocities by Serbian paramilitaries in the 1990s Balkan wars.

[...] in a majority decision, the three-judge panel said there was insufficient evidence linking the politician to the crimes.

In a majority ruling, the judges ruled that Serbian plans to carve out a “Greater Serbia” by uniting lands they considered Serb territory in Croatia and Bosnia was a “political goal” and not a criminal plan, as prosecutors alleged.

Antonetti distanced Seselj from the crimes of the paramilitaries he helped to establish, saying that although Seselj, “may have had a certain amount of moral authority over his party’s volunteers, they were not his subordinates” when they went into combat.

The prosecutor pointed to the ruling’s controversial findings, including that there was not a widespread attack by Serb forces on civilians in Bosnia and Croatia, and that operations to bus non-Serbs out of areas claimed by Serbs as part of a “Greater Serbia” amounted to a humanitarian mission rather than the forcible removal of the population.