TRIBUNAL SPOKESPERSONS ON REQUEST BY GOTOVINA'S ATTORNEY

THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Oct 22 (Hina) - The request by attorney Luka Misetic that the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague reject an amended indictment against his client, fugitive general Ante Gotovina, has no legal effect, because Misetic has no status as defence counsel before the tribunal, spokespersons for the tribunal and the office of the prosecutor said on Wednesday. #L# He has no status before the tribunal and that's why his request is not under consideration. When he acquires the status once the accused is in The Hague, matters like this will be dealt with accordingly, tribunal spokesman Jim Landale told Hina in a telephone interview. Under rule 46 of the tribunal's rules of procedure and evidence, the accused qualifies for the appointment of defence counsel once he is in the custody of the tribunal, after which the tribunal's registry may verify counsel's power of attorney. Asked where requests by the attorneys of fugitive indictees ended up, Landale said that, as far as he knew, they were delivered to the office of the tribunal's president. He reiterated that those motions were filed by persons whose legitimacy was not recognised by the tribunal. The spokeswoman for the office of the prosecutor, Florance Hartmann, told Hina by telephone that motions which the tribunal could not receive in a prescribed way were "a waste of time". Hartmann said that this did not mean that some comments or information presented in such requests had no value, but that such efforts would have no effect as long as the accused was on the run. She reiterated that the office of the prosecutor would amend the indictment against Gotovina to include data on victims who had been identified in the meantime and that two persons who had been found to be alive would be removed from the indictment. The Croatian government's legal expert in the Gotovina case, Goran Mikulicic, described the announced amendment of the indictment by the tribunal as "a common formality", saying that in the case of the Hague tribunal amended indictments were a rule rather than an exception. Mikulicic said that the amendment of the indictment was prompted by the realisation of the prosecutor that two living persons were declared dead in the indictment. Asked whether the indictment was possibly amended on the basis of documents recently handed over by the Croatian government, Mikulicic said that he had examined most of the documents and that there were none among them that could lead to new charges. "On the contrary, there are documents that either indicate extenuating circumstances for General Gotovina or fundamentally question his responsibility," he said. The Hague tribunal indicted Gotovina in June 2001 for crimes against humanity committed during and after the 1995 military operation Storm in the area under his command in the former UN Sector South. (hina) vm