THE HAGUE, June 17 (Hina) - In a letter sent Tuesday to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, the chief prosecutor of the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte, refused the possibility of investigators speaking
with Croatian General Ante Gotovina as a suspect and stressed "the only solution is for the accused Gotovina to surrender or be arrested and transferred to The Hague and appear before the tribunal".
THE HAGUE, June 17 (Hina) - In a letter sent Tuesday to Croatian
President Stjepan Mesic, the chief prosecutor of the U.N. war
crimes tribunal in The Hague (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte, refused the
possibility of investigators speaking with Croatian General Ante
Gotovina as a suspect and stressed "the only solution is for the
accused Gotovina to surrender or be arrested and transferred to The
Hague and appear before the tribunal". #L#
Del Ponte sent the letter in reply to a letter Mesic sent her on June
12, asking that she consider the possibility of changing or
withdrawing the indictment against Gotovina.
Mesic's office sent Del Ponte's letter to Hina.
"The accused Gotovina has been on the run for two years. The ICTY
issued an indictment against him and an ICTY judge confirmed it and
signed a warrant for his arrest. Therefore, he cannot be
interviewed as a suspect. The ICTY is the only place where the
indictment and all available evidence can and will be deliberated.
Under the current circumstances, the withdrawal of the indictment
is not feasible," the letter reads.
Del Ponte emphasised that it was not the ICTY's fault that the
Croatian authorities had not previously allowed an interview with
Gotovina as a suspect, and that fact did not affect the current
legal situation.
The Prosecutor's Office is "prepared to speak with the accused
immediately upon his surrender to check and verify further evidence
in the case, so that we may continue the investigation if
necessary", says the letter.
"In is in the interest of the accused and of justice to bring back
the case from the public and political domain into the area of legal
procedure, in which there is a large number of legal possibilities
of appraising all issues relevant for the indictment, charges and
evidence," Del Ponte says.
She also informs President Mesic of her office having received
documents relating to the Gotovina case which he had provided to the
government recently.
"I can guarantee that these documents will be translated timely and
examined carefully, but it would certainly be premature to evaluate
them outside the regular court procedure and in the absence of the
accused," the chief prosecutor said in the letter.
(hina) lml