GOTOVINA'S DEFENCE ATTORNEYS REACT TO STATEMENT BY ICTY PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE

ZAGREB, Jan 7 (Hina) - General Ante Gotovina's attorneys on Wednesday reacted to a statement by the spokeswoman for the ICTY Prosecutor's Office, Florence Hartmann, about the Croatian government's handover of documents to Gotovina's defence team. Gotovina's attorneys said in a statement that Hatmann devalued the government's act and equated it as acting on the private wishes of Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte".#L# The statement said that by acting in accordance with a Zagreb Municipal Court ruling, the Croatian government decided to hand over the documentation Gotovina's lawyers had requested. The fugitive general's attorneys said that the government acted in line with the ruling of an authorised judicial body and not in line with "the private wishes of Mrs. Del Ponte" and thus met its legal and constitutional obligations towards Gotovina, a Croatian citizen. The defence team maintains that with her statement, Hartmann admitted that there was no ban which would stem from the ICTY Rules of Procedure and Evidence, as she claimed earlier, but that preventing Gotovina's attorneys from receiving the said documents was evidently the arbitrary will of some individuals from the ICTY Prosecutor's Office. Hartmann told Hina today that Del Ponte decided to make an exception and allow the handover of the documents to Gotovina's lawyers. The attorneys said in the statement that if there was any legal ban under the ICTY Statute and Rules of Procedure, the exception could be made only by the tribunal and not by the chief prosecutor. "We believe that Mrs. Hartmann today confirmed what Gotovina's defence team has been claiming for more than two years -- that Gotovina has the right to receive all the documents that were forwarded to the Hague tribunal and that there is no legal ban at all regarding the handover of the said documents," Gotovina's attorneys said in the statement. (Hina) it sb