There has been no sufficient progress in Croatia's search for Gotovina. The implementation of the government's action plan, which was presented in April, has been too slow for now and it has lacked the necessary determination. There has been no substantial qualitative change in the operations conducted by Croatia. The indications that I have still show that Gotovina is in the region, Carla del Ponte said in a statement she read at a press conference in Bern, Switzerland, where she was attending a conference on civilian peace building and human rights in Southeast Europe.
She described Wednesday's arrest in Greece of controversial Croatian businessman Hrvoje Petrac, who is believed to be a member of the network of Gotovina's supporters, as a positive development in which Croatia played a part, but was not alone. She added that Petrac's arrest was a good example of international cooperation among intelligence services and other relevant authorities, commending the efficiency of the Greek police.
Croatia now has the opportunity to finally infiltrate the real network that is protecting Gotovina. We will be monitoring very closely Croatia's actions in the coming weeks. We truly expect Croatia to act aggressively based on this new development in order to bring Gotovina to The Hague, Del Ponte said. She noted that the ICTY had indicted Gotovina and not Petrac.
Taking questions from the press, the chief prosecutor said that her office was also instrumental in locating Petrac.
Croatia still has several weeks to locate and arrest Gotovina before the EU asks me if Croatia is fully cooperating with the ICTY, Del Ponte said. When pressed by a reporter to say what her response would be if she were asked that question today, she answered in the negative.
Del Ponte said that some of Gotovina's close followers believed or pretended to believe that she would give up or that the tribunal would be closed before the runaway general was put on trial in The Hague.
I want to be very clear. I will never allow the indictment against Gotovina to be withdrawn and there is no way he can be put on trial anywhere else but in The Hague, she stressed.
Reiterating the view of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the EU that the ICTY would not be closed before the three most wanted fugitives -- Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, and Gotovina -- were brought to The Hague, Del Ponte said that Gotovina had two options: either to surrender voluntarily or be arrested.
She was particularly critical of Serbia and Montenegro, saying that Mladic was hiding in Serbia and Karadzic in the region and that the overall success of the ICTY depended on their arrest.
Serbia had promised that Mladic would be handed over before 11 July, referring to the 10th anniversary commemorating the Srebrenica massacre, but it has not happened yet. The army still strongly supports Mladic, the prosecutor said.
According to Del Ponte, failure to extradite Karadzic and Mladic shows that Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's policy of voluntary surrenders has reached its limits.
Del Ponte strongly urged the EU not to start association and stabilisation negotiations with Serbia while the two men were at large.
Responding to reporters' comments on the questionable nature of such conditions being placed on Zagreb and Belgrade in light of their efforts to draw closer to the EU, the prosecutor said that it was a political decision of the EU, that it would be of great benefit to the ICTY and that she had not intention of giving it up.
Del Ponte declined to answer why she had requested a review of the Appeals Chamber's judgement in the case of former Bosnian Croat military commander Tihomir Blaskic, saying that it was a confidential motion whose disclosure to the public would be in violation of ICTY rules.