PARLIAMENT PRESIDENT CONCERNED ABOUT DEL PONTE'S REPORT

OSIJEK, Oct 10 (Hina) - Croatian Parliament President Zlatko Tomcic said on Friday the report chief prosecutor with the Hague war crimes tribunal Carla Del Ponte submitted to the U.N. Security Council yesterday was different from statements she gave during a recent visit to Zagreb, and that he was concerned that those statements veiled the suspicion that fugitive indictee Ante Gotovina might be in Croatia. #L# Talking to reporters after presenting his Croatian Peasant Party's platform in Osijek, Tomcic said Del Ponte claimed in Zagreb that Croatia's cooperation with the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the prosecutor's office was very good, notably in the delivery of documents and access to witnesses, while in her report to the U.N. she said the cooperation was not always as good as it should be and that the tribunal was not satisfied. He recalled Del Ponte reiterated the Gotovina issue remained open unlike tribunal president Theodor Meron, who did not mention him in his report to the Security Council. Tomcic said he was concerned about the fact that Del Ponte's statements veiled the suspicion that Gotovina might be in Croatia. "The biggest surprise for me were her claims before the Security Council that there is no evidence that he is not in Croatia as well as the fact that neither President (Stjepan) Mesic nor Prime Minister (Ivica) Racan explicitly said that he is not in Croatia." Tomcic went on to say that he would have to analyse what Del Ponte said, but added that "if there is no harsh denial from the Croatian side, suspicion remains that previous claims that Gotovina isn't in Croatia may have not been true, which would be very bad for Croatia". (hina) ha