ZAGREB, Oct 6 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said on Monday that Croatia had done all it could to resolve the case of General Ante Gotovina, and that now was the time for the fugitive general to make a move.
ZAGREB, Oct 6 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said on
Monday that Croatia had done all it could to resolve the case of
General Ante Gotovina, and that now was the time for the fugitive
general to make a move. #L#
"Cooperation with the Hague tribunal is going well and the
government has nothing to change there. The ball is now in General
Gotovina's court," Mesic told Croatian Radio after meeting the
chief prosecutor of the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal, Carla
Del Ponte, in Zagreb on Monday.
Mesic said that it was the last moment for the general to decide his
position and answer the questions of the Hague tribunal.
"If he agrees to answer before the tribunal, he will improve both
his position and that of Croatia," the president said.
"Gotovina's surrender may help both him and Croatia. If he appeared
before the tribunal voluntarily, he would be provisionally
released pending trial. His position would be different if he were
apprehended by the police," Mesic said.
The president said he believed that "General Gotovina, being a
patriot, will take the opportunity and answer the tribunal's
questions, which he could not answer when he became a suspect,
because the authorities at the time would not let him."
Mesic repeated that, according to Croatian intelligence services,
Gotovina was not hiding in Croatia. "There is some fresh
information and some old, so it's hard to say what the truth is."
The president dismissed the allegation that the authorities knew
Gotovina's whereabouts but did not want to arrest him before the
forthcoming elections.
He said he did not find out from Del Ponte where Gotovina was staying
in Croatia. Mesic said Del Ponte did not know Gotovina's
whereabouts but could only guess them.
"If Gotovina were in Croatia, people would know about it one way or
the other. He is not unknown and he can't be staying in a closed room
without seeing the light of day. Someone would have bragged about it
or informed on him, and that piece of information would have reached
intelligence services," the president said.
Mesic said that on the basis of his talks with the chief prosecutor
today, it could be concluded that, with the exception of the
Gotovina case, Del Ponte would commend Croatia for its cooperation
in her report to the UN Security Council later this week.
Mesic said he expected that the tribunal would exert more pressure
to cut channels through which General Gotovina was being funded.
"They will probably demand greater cooperation from our services,
but I think that we won't be subjected to any major criticism," the
president said.
Del Ponte did not name the persons helping General Gotovina, but
said she had certain information and would inform the Croatian
authorities at a later date, Mesic said.
The president said that it was not the present intelligence
services but those that had existed under the former government
that were to blame for the Gotovina case.
"The services failed, because when a summons was issued for the
questioning of Gotovina, they should have placed him under
surveillance to prevent him from escaping," Mesic said.
Mesic said he expected the ratification of Croatia's stabilisation
and association agreement with the European Union would be put on
hold for a while because of the failure to resolve the Gotovina
case.
Mesic said he did not discuss with Del Ponte the possibility of
issuing new indictments.
The president said that the naming of General Gotovina together
with Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic
in documents of the Hague tribunal was not properly interpreted by
the Croatian public.
"They are just listed together, but their guilt is not the same. The
tribunal just named the persons who are beyond its reach, but
everyone has to answer for their own deeds," Mesic said.
(hina) vm sb