GRANIC: CROATIA WILL TELL ICTY IT CANNOT ARREST GOTOVINA

ZAGREB, Sept 18 (Hina) - Croatia will have to inform the Hague tribunal (ICTY) that it is unable to implement the warrant for the arrest of General Ante Gotovina, Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic said in an interview for Vecernji List daily published on Thursday under headline "We Will Tell The Hague We Cannot Arrest Gotovina". #L# Granic said Croatia would reply to ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte by September 20 saying that it cannot fulfil that commitment. "Croatia will give such an answer considering that in two years it did not receive any relevant piece of information about the whereabouts of General Gotovina neither from its own intelligence services nor from those in Bosnia-Herzegovina," said Granic. Asked whether Del Ponte would believe that Gotovina was in the European Union, as written in Nacional weekly, Granic said he did not know. When the interview with Gotovina was published in Nacional, numerous questions were raised -- where did Gotovina give the interview and how a reporter could reach him when secret services could not, said Granic. He stressed that similar situations took place in the world, namely that a fugitive of Gotovina's profile picked somebody to send a message through the media and ensured and protected himself in every possible way. Asked whether this was the most delicate situation the government found itself in because of the fugitive general, Granic said the problem in the past four years was the credibility of Croatian institutions, not only when it came to cooperation with the Hague tribunal but also when it came to minorities, the return of refugees, etc. (hina) it