HAGUE ASKED FOR CONFIRMATION ON SECRECY OF MESIC TESTIMONY

ZAGREB, Dec 18 (Hina) - The municipal state prosecutor's office in the southern Adriatic town of Split on Monday requested a confirmation from UN's war crimes tribunal in The Hague that the Croatian president's 1998 testimony was secret. The office will then decide if there is ground to press charges for unauthorised disclosure of the testimony in the media. Municipal state prosecutor Nediljko Ivancevic told Hina he had requested a 1997 Hague tribunal decision declaring protected witness testimonies secret. The request was forwarded via the Croatian government's office for cooperation with the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Acting state prosecutor Slavko Zadnik said today he had requested the government to state if any secret had been disclosed by publishing the Mesic testimony. His request remains unanswered. Earlier this month, the Hague tribunal had issued an order prohibiting publication of records of protected witness testimonies after Globus weekly and Slobodna Dalmacija daily published statements and part of the transcript of the March 1998 testimony Mesic gave in the trial of Bosnian Croat general Tihomir Blaskic. The tribunal's prosecutor's office had warned that the Mesic testimony was a confidential document the publication of which breached witness protection measures. Mesic later said he would not seek protection for his testimony. The order had been forwarded to the Croatian government, Globus, and Slobodna Dalmacija. The latter, however, continued to publish parts of the transcript. The tribunal had also requested the government to submit data on the sources and authors behind the unauthorised publishing. The government issued a press release saying it had no information as to the sources and authors. (hina) ha