Serbian ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj cast himself as a martyr Thursday, daring the UN war crimes court to give him the harshest possible sentence so that his ideas would become immortal.
"The harsher the sentence, the stronger my ideology will become," said Seselj, leader of Serbia's biggest political party, as he addressed the court on the second day of his trial. Seselj denies charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including persecution, deportation, murder and torture - committed by his volunteer troops during the 1990s Balkan wars.
In a thundering speech, Seselj said he regretted that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) did not have the death sentence. "So that proudly, with dignity, upright like my friend Saddam Hussein I could put the final seal on my ideology... I have lived long enough but I want immortality for my ideology," he said.
He berated the "illegal" court for what he said was its anti-Serb bias and blasted the prosecution for its "false indictment". Seselj is specifically accused of forming a joint criminal enterprise with late Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to "ethnically cleanse" large parts of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia's northern Vojvodina region.
Prosecutors argue that Seselj's inflammatory speeches incited Serb volunteer fighters and paramilitaries to commit atrocities, and they have labelled him "the man who gave the world ethnic cleansing".
During the 1991-95 wars in Croatia and Bosnia, Seselj's party sent its paramilitaries to the frontlines. At least five former members of the so-called White Eagles are currently on trial in a Serbian war crimes court. "I am being tried because of my nationalist ideology and my speeches. I am proud of that," Seselj told the court.
Before adjourning the hearing, presiding judge Jean-Claude Antonetti assured Seselj that the tribunal would not convict him on the basis of his ideology but that it would look at the facts. Seselj also strove to paint himself as the victim of an anti-Serb conspiracy.
"Any war we waged was not against the Muslims and the Croatians, or the Albanians for that matter but against their bosses: Germany, the Vatican, America and Nato," he said .
Seselj, 53, surrendered to the UN court in February 2003, saying he wanted to destroy the tribunal. He went on hunger strike last year to insist on his right to defend himself, forcing an earlier trial to be nullified.
On Thursday he rejected the prosecution argument that he had incited his volunteers to commit atrocities. "If I encouraged them, I encouraged them to win the war, I never encouraged them to commit crimes," he said. Clearly playing to the Serb public, Seselj warned that if he could be convicted of being part of a joint criminal enterprise, any Serb could be prosecuted for the same thing.
Seselj still wields considerable influence in the SRS party, which is hoping the trial will raise its profile in Serbia ahead of presidential elections expected early next year. The case against Seselj in the UN court is the first, since the Milosevic trial, to focus on Serbia's involvement in the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia.
Seselj accused the ICTY of having "falsified modern Serb history" by ruling the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslims by Bosnian Serb troops was an act of genocide. "We Serbs are a chivalrous people. We do not commit genocide," he insisted.