Serbia will challenge a UN court request to extradite two ultra-nationalist MPs accused of witness tampering during trials against radical Vojislav Seselj, a minister said Friday.
Vjerica Radeta, 63, and Petar Jojic, 80, were Seselj's defense lawyers and their case has dragged on for more than four years, with Serbia refusing to arrest and extradite them.
The pair was first charged in December 2014 with "having threatened, intimidated, offered bribes to, or otherwise interfered with two witnesses" in two cases involving Seselj.
After failed efforts to bring them to the Hague, in June 2018, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) referred their case to Serbia for its national courts to deal with.
But earlier this month the court revoked the referral.
It ordered Serbia to send the pair to The Hague "without delay" and issued fresh international arrest warrants for them.
"The witnesses are not willing to disclose their personal information to Serbian authorities for fear of their life," a judge said in a written order.
Serbian Justice Minister Nela Kuborovic said Friday the ruling has arrived at her ministry.
"Serbia has the right to appeal it and will challenge it," she said quoted by Beta news agency.
The appeal will be lodged with the MICT, the ministry said without elaborating on the date.
The two lawyers now serve as deputies in Seselj's far-right Serbian Radical Party in the national assembly.
The now-defunct International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) -- which the MICT has taken over from -- issued arrest warrants against Jojic and Radeta in January 2015 and the case has dragged on ever since.
In April 2018, UN judges sentenced Seselj to 10 years in prison over crimes against humanity, but he walked free because of the time he had already served in detention.
The Serb nationalist was convicted of instigating persecution, deportation and other inhuman acts over an anti-Croat speech delivered in the early 1990s as the region descended into a series of wars.