LJUBLJANA DAILY: NO TAPPING DEVICES IN SVETA GERA

LJUBLJANA, April 17 (Hina) - The Slovene army does not have any tapping devices installed in Sveta Gera, having dismantled them back in 1998 after a scandal with a spy van which wandered off over the border into Croatia, Ljubljana's daily "Dnevnik" writes in its weekly supplement, in response to a recent article by Zagreb's "Globus" weekly. #L# Claims that the Slovene army is tapping telephone lines in Croatia are "old wives' tales", considering that intelligence techniques have changed and that new equipment has been available in recent years to anybody interested in such things, a private detective, Franc Strle, told the daily. "Dnevnik" writes that speculations about spying are absurd, considering the good cooperation between the Slovene and Croatian armies and that the same suppositions could be made for the Croatian side wiretapping Slovenia from Zagrebacka Gora, which is a favourable location which used to be an ex-Yugoslav People's Army radio transmission centre. The same centre was located at Sveta Gera, intended for connecting Yugoslav army units from Ljubljana, via Zagreb, to Belgrade. (hina) lml