"I have received a phone call as a suspect," Jovic confirmed to Hina on Wednesday, adding that he would respond to the request and was willing to be interviewed, for the time being without an attorney.
The request is linked with possible charges for contempt of court committed through the publishing of a transcript of a testimony given by a protected witness in the trial of Tihomir Blaskic on March 16, 1998, which came out in installments in December 2000, Jovic said.
On April 26 the Hague tribunal indicted for contempt of court the publisher and the editor of the "Hrvatsko slovo" weekly, Stjepan Seselj and Domagoj Margetic respectively, who are held responsible for publishing excerpts of the same transcript.
Asked about the fact that he received the request by phone instead of in writing, Jovic said he had been told that this was due to the need to avoid formalities and that the interview would take place at the ICTY Zagreb office on June 17.
Jovic said that he had acted professionally when he published the transcript because there was public interest in it.
"It makes no sense to contact me four years after the publishing (of the transcript), when it no longer has any effect," he said.
In her address to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on May 19, the ICTY Chief Prosecutor said witness protection was one of the three most important elements in referring cases to national judiciaries.
Revealing the identity of a witness can have very serious consequences. Apart from physically endangering a witness, it can have a much wider effect on the willingness to testify, especially before national courts, Del Ponte said.
Commenting in that context on accusations and investigations against Croatian reporters, Jovic said that they had a political function "of quietening down possible reactions in Croatia before what is planned to be done is done," Jovic said, alluding to the possible arrest of General Ante Gotovina.
Asked to explain his statement about the interest of the public in the publishing of the said testimony, Jovic said that "there absolutely existed public interest", and stressed that "reporters have a duty to uncover secrets".
"It was a testimony by the incumbent president of the state which is the basis of many subsequent indictments and which has served to write the recent history of the Balkans," Jovic said, adding that the president "had maybe lied" because he claimed for a long time that he had testified in the trials of Slavko Dokmanovic and Slobodan Milosevic, only to state himself later that he had testified in Blaskic's trial.
The news of the ICTY's request to Jovic was first published by "Hrvatski list", whose editor-in-chief Ivica Marijacic too has been indicted by the ICTY for contempt of court, together with former intelligence chief Markica Rebic, for making public a testimony by another protected witness.
Marijacic and Rebic are to enter their pleas before the ICTY on June 14.
Under Rule 77 of the ICTY Rules of Procedure and Evidence, contempt of court is punishable with prison sentences of up to seven years and fines amounting to up to 100,000 euros, or a combination of both.