(AP-ANSA) - THE HAGUE - A United Nations court has partly overturned the acquittal of Serbian ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj on war crimes and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment.

Seselj, accused of persecution, murder and torture during the former Yugoslavia's bloody conflict in the 1990s, was acquitted in 2016 of nine war crimes and crimes against humanity charges. But because he had already been in prison for almost a dozen years before returning to Belgrade in 2014, Wednesday's sentencing will have no practical impact on him. Seselj told the Associated Press on just prior to the reading of the verdict in The Hague, the Netherlands that "I don't care about the ruling.

Now I'll go and have a siesta." The prosecution had said that acquitting Seselj would have dama ged the war crimes tribunal's legacy. (ANSA-AP).