SERBIAN RADICAL LEADER HINTS AT HAGUE SUBPOENA FOR POPE

SERBIAN RADICAL LEADER HINTS AT HAGUE SUBPOENA FOR POPE
BBC Monitoring International Reports - March 31, 2005

Text of report by Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA

The Hague, 31 March: The chairman of the Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj, who has been indicted for war crimes, has asked the Hague tribunal to force the Vatican to submit documents necessary for his defence, where the main argument is that Pope John Paul II was responsible for the crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

In the request submitted to the court council, Seselj asks for the tribunal to send the Vatican "a binding court order on penalty of subpoena" to present the accused with "documents and information which he needs to use as evidence, within the framework of the main approach to his defence which is in preparation, to show that the main culprit for all the war crimes, for which the prosecutor has falsely accused Prof Dr Vojislav Seselj of, is Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II".

Seselj specifies that the binding order should include the Pope, all cardinals, archbishops, bishops and "all Roman Catholic Church officials" and "all details and every statement in which they mention the Balkan crisis, war and armed conflict, from the time of Pope John Paul's election until the present day".

"Included under documents and information are their statements, the plans and policies of the Roman Catholic Church which they represented and supported, which relate to the break up of SFRJ (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) and resolution of the causes of the armed conflict on the territory of the former SFRJ, and the complete transcript notes of talks held with any politicians where the Balkans was mentioned," it says in Seselj's request.

Seselj intends "within the framework of his main defence to offer concrete proof of Pope John Paul II's individual responsibility", for whom he says gave "the orders, instigated, aided and planned war crimes to be committed".

The accused writes, amongst other things, that the Roman Catholic Church expressed its "love and benevolence" towards the government of former Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, which had "Ustasha (WW2 Croatian fascists) views as part of its state ideology" and which was the "fundamental cause of the outbreak of the armed conflict in which war crimes were committed".

The chairman of the court council, Carmel Agius, will rule on Seselj's request.

Source: SRNA news agency, Bijeljina, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 1333 gmt 31 Mar 05