ZAGREB, Sept 22 (Hina) - Prime Minister Ivica Racan on Monday defended Croatian secret services from accusations of their alleged involvement in concealing fugitive General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal in
The Hague.
ZAGREB, Sept 22 (Hina) - Prime Minister Ivica Racan on Monday
defended Croatian secret services from accusations of their
alleged involvement in concealing fugitive General Ante Gotovina,
who is wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. #L#
"You cannot monitor anyone's conversations without a court order.
Everyone should accept that, including people at the tribunal in
The Hague. Our laws may be restrictive, but they are in force and
everyone must respect them," Racan told a Croatian radio
programme.
He said that the government had been accused many times of knowing
Gotovina's whereabouts but not wanting to arrest him.
"Those accusations are unfounded," he said, adding that Croatian
authorities "would apprehend General Gotovina if they knew where he
is, because we respect the law."
The prime minister said that the Gotovina case would exist until the
general went before the Hague tribunal to defend himself from
unjust accusations.
Asked why he had not responded to the accusations by Serb People's
Party leader Ivan Djukic that the government's treatment of the
Serbs was worse than it had been during the Ustasha regime in World
War Two, Racan said he had responded and that such statements "don't
help anyone, least of all the Serbs in Croatia."
Commenting on the claim by Human Rights Watch that returning Serb
refugees were being discriminated against, Racan said that the same
could be said of Croats unable to return to areas from which they had
been expelled. Croatia has earmarked huge amounts of Croatian
taxpayers' money for the return of refugees, he said.
(hina) vm