GOTOVINA'S DEFENCE TEAM LODGES COMPLAINT AGAINST GOVERNMENT

ZAGREB, Sept 13 (Hina) - The defence team of Hague war crimes tribunal indictee Ante Gotovina lodged a complaint with the Zagreb County Court on Thursday against the Croatian government and its office for cooperation with the UN's tribunal. The defence team also moved that the Constitutional Court assess whether Article 20 of Croatia's constitutional law on cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is in compliance with the Constitution. "We have lodged a complaint against the... Government and the office for cooperation with the Hague tribunal as the Government has not made available to us the documentation it forwarded to the... tribunal in the case of General Gotovina and which we requested," Luka Misetic told Hina on behalf of the defence team. He added the government had thus breached the Constitution and parliament's declaration on cooperation with the Tribunal which binds the government to deliver the documentation simultaneously to the Prosecutor's Office and the defence. Under Article 20 of the said constitutional law, the panel of judges grants a request for the hand-over of an ICTY indictee after it has been established the request refers to the person asked to be extradited and that the crime in question falls under the competence of the Hague tribunal, in line with its Statute. Misetic advocates a model of cooperation with the tribunal which would enable Croatia's judiciary to check if the ICTY's accusations are founded before extraditing its citizens. This would "take the Hague issue out of the realm of politics and put it into the realm of the judiciary, where such issues are supposed to be addressed," he told Hina. (hina) ha sb