Serb Leader on Trial

Seselj, the leader of Serbia's biggest political party, the Serbian Radical Party, smiled as the charges against him were read out. He faces three charges of crimes against humanity and six counts of war crimes related to the 1990s Balkan wars, including persecution, deportation, murder and torture.

The ultra-nationalist, labeled by prosecutors as the man "who gave the world the term ethnic cleansing," is also 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 during the 1990s Balkan wars.

Prosecutors say he recruited and indoctrinated volunteers and paramilitaries who would go on to commit atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia. During the 1991-95 wars in Croatia and Bosnia, Seselj's party sent its own 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.

Accused of unspeakable crimes

"He advocated violence against non-Serbs ... he raised his own army of volunteers ... [and] indoctrinated them with his poisonous ideas" and sent them to the front lines were they committed "unspeakable crimes," prosecutor Christine Dahl said.

"Seselj repeatedly called for the 'liberation' of what he said were Serbian lands, unfortunately other people already lived there, people Seselj had no use for," she added. "In the end Seselj did not achieve a Greater Serbia, he managed to achieve a lesser Serbia and gave the world the term ethnic cleansing."

The prosecution stressed that Seselj used "tried and true propaganda techniques" to incite his followers to criminal violence and compared the atrocities he is accused of to those committed in Nazi Germany, Cambodia and Rwanda.

"These were not the misguided deeds of some psychopath, but instead the result of a political and military leadership," Dahl said.

Conducting own defense

The 53-year-old defendant looked relaxed and confident in court, taking notes and even laughing outright when the prosecution showed a video of him in front of a crowd chanting "Serbia! Serbia!"

Seselj, who has been in custody in The Hague since February 2003, denies all the charges and, like Milosevic before him, has insisted on conducting his own defense.

"I am being tried for atrocious war crimes that I allegedly committed through hate speech as I preached my nationalist ideology that I am proud of," he said in a pre-trial hearing Tuesday. "I have no other involvement in these crimes except for what I said or wrote."

A fierce critic of the West, Seselj has said he will use the trial to show the existence of an international anti-Serb conspiracy involving the European Union, Germany, NATO, the United States and the Vatican.

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.