On 30 November 2006, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) detainee Vojislav Šešelj was moved to the prison hospital next to the United Nations (UN) Detention Unit of the prison of Scheveningen. Šešelj, who is currently refusing food or to be seen by any Dutch doctor, was consulted by the Tribunal to identify a number of countries from which he would accept medical assistance. However, he refused to see a French doctor that visited him after this agreement. Šešelj has not provided any names of Serbian doctors despite the ICTY’s willingness to accommodate his request for medical assistance of his choosing.
 
The ICTY has provided briefings to diplomats and government officials from the Netherlands and the Republic of Serbia to make sure that they kept well informed. The Tribunal has also extended an invitation to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit the UN Detention Unit and prison hospital and to meet Vojislav Šešelj. The reasons for his refusal to take food have been various and subject to change. They relate to unmonitored visits by his wife, his right to self-defence, the facilities to be made available for the preparation of his defence, recognition of his legal associates and the demand that the ICTY approaches a foreign state in order to unfreeze assets he holds in overseas bank accounts. Šešelj has allegedly stated that he does not want to be force-fed if he loses consciousness.

As President of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), Vojislav Šešelj was a prominent political figure in the former Yugoslavia during 1991-1995. According to the Indictment, he participated in a joint criminal enterprise whose purpose was the permanent forcible removal of non-Serb populations from approximately one-third of the territory of Croatia, large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and from parts of Vojvodina in the Republic of Serbia, in order to make these areas part of a new Serb-dominated state. He is charged on the basis of individual criminal responsibility with eight counts of crimes against humanity and six violations of the laws or customs of war.

Press release