Yugoslav war crimes court removes judge

The UN's Yugoslav war crimes court has for the first time removed a judge from a trial, because a leaked letter he wrote appeared to show he was biased, it said yesterday.
The shock removal of Danish judge Frederik Harhoff from the trial of Serbian ultra nationalist Vojislav Seselj came after his deeply controversial letter was leaked to the media in June.
In the private letter that Harfhoff wrote to colleagues, he criticised a "departure from the previous 'set practice' of convicting military commanders", said the court, citing arguments made by Seselj, who had sought the Danish judge's removal over the letter.
Harhoff also claimed that the tribunal's president, US judge Theodor Meron, had pressured other judges to acquit leading Croatian and Serbian officers, possibly under pressure from the US and Israel.
ICTY spokeswoman Magda Spalinska told AFP that it was now up to the court's vice president to decide how Seselj's case will proceed.
The leaked letter led to motions for cases in which Harfhoff sat to be reviewed, but no decision has yet been taken on those.
Serbian Radical Party leader Seselj gave himself up to the ICTY in 2003, and a judgement in his case had been due on October 30.