At the meeting with del Ponte no mention was made as to where the trial of the six Bosnian Croats will take place, so there could not have been any misunderstanding about the future of the trial, the prosecutor's spokesperson, Florance Hartmann, told Hina on the phone.
The six persons who were granted provisional release will be tried in The Hague, Hartmann said, adding that this was a trial of senior officials which the ICTY could not transfer to local judiciary.
ICTY spokesman Jim Landale would not comment on Covic's statements given after his meeting with ICTY president Theodor Meron, stating that he had not attended the meeting.
Former political and military leaders of the former Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna - Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Valentin Coric, Berislav Pusic, Milivoj Petkovic and Slobodan Praljak - are charged with the persecution of Bosnian Muslims in areas controlled by the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) in the period between 1991 and 1994.
After they were granted provisional release last Wednesday, the six arrived in Zagreb, which most of them had chosen as their place of residence pending trial.
The indictment against these officials was issued after the UN Security Council had given instructions under which the tribunal's new indictments could refer only to the most senior officials charged with war crimes, Hartmann said.