"So far we have received no information which could indicate that Gotovina is in Croatia. There is no such piece of information, but we shall learn about Gotovina's whereabouts, particularly if foreign intelligence agencies help us in this search," Mesic told Croatian Radio on Monday afternoon.
Claiming that there is less than one percent of chances that Gotovina is in Croatia, Mesic added that even if he was in Croatia "so many measures have been taken that they must result in finding him".
The president reiterated he believed that Croatian services would locate Gotovina until 17 March, and that Croatia's membership talks with the European Union would be opened as scheduled. He explained that his optimism was based on the co-ordinated and comprehensive engagement of all services in searching for Gotovina.
"I still maintain that the accession negotiations will start on 17 March, as there is no reason for them not to start given that Croatia fully cooperates with the Hague Tribunal. Our services are engaged, every information is being checked. Thus, we shall prove to our European friends that we have taken all that is necessary, that we cooperate but that we cannot arrest Gotovina because he is not in Croatia," Mesic told the national radio.
He ascribed the services' failure to locate Gotovina until now to a certain rivalry among intelligence services and the nonexistence of an umbrella organisation that would co-ordinate their operations. Those defects, however, have been mainly removed through greater engagement of the services and frequent sessions of the National Security Council, Mesic said.
He thinks that it would be better if the information about Gotovina's criminal record, namely his final verdicts in France, had appeared at the time when he came back to Croatia and joined the army. This information, however, would only show what kind of person he is but it would say nothing about the war events for which Gotovina was indicted by the Hague Tribunal, Mesic said.
"At that time the country needed people with war experience, and Foreign Legion members had that." This was probably the reason why reports about them were not checked, he added.
Commenting on the case of some Defence Ministry employees having been engaged in harbouring another ICTY indictee, Ivica Rajic, Mesic said he was certain there had existed an organised group in charge of assisting persons who had been wanted by the prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
"And Carla del Ponte may now think that if anybody helped Rajic with impunity, why wouldn't they help Gotovina, too," Mesic said commenting on a statement made by the ICTY Chief Prosecutor that some Croatian officials are helping Gotovina while he is on the run.