GOTOVINA'S ATTORNEY REQUESTS U.N. INVESTIGATION OF CARLA DEL PONTE

WASHINGTON, Oct 9 (Hina) - The attorney for Croatian army general Ante Gotovina on Wednesday requested the UN Security Council to initiate an investigation of the chief prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia over her poor conduct of the Gotovina case. #L# In a letter to the UN secretary general and all Security Council members, attorney Luka Misetic accused chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte of violating international standards of the prosecutorial ethic by charging the fugitive general with killing two persons who she had known were alive. Misetic said that Del Ponte refused to withdraw the charges despite the indisputable evidence that the alleged victims were actually alive. The attorney said that Croatian journalist Vlatka Hercigonja had found out that the alleged victims, Bosiljka Beric and Mirjana Beric, were alive, the former living in Serbia-Montenegro and the latter in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The same had been previously established by Savo Strbac and his Belgrade-based organisation Veritas, which gathers evidence on crimes against Serbs allegedly committed by Croatian forces, Misetic wrote. Referring to the UN guidelines for prosecutors, which require prosecutors to reject any false accusations, Misetic urged that the charges against Gotovina be deleted from the indictment as false and that an investigation be launched to establish if any other alleged victims were alive. (hina) vm