We are still waiting for that decision, ICTY spokeswoman Alexandra Milenov said, adding she could not reveal any other details.
Milenov said that the Registry usually confirms a defence attorney chosen by the accused if that person meets the prescribed requirements, such as membership of the Association of Defence Counsel practising before the ICTY and membership of a national bar association, but sometimes a defence attorney is not approved and the accused has to choose another one.
Gotovina's American lawyer Luka Misetic told Hina in a telephone interview that the reasons for the present situation were of a formal nature because he and another US lawyer, Greg Kehoe, were still awaiting permission from the US Department of the Treasury for them to defend Gotovina before the ICTY.
We have not yet received a licence from our Department of the Treasury, but they have told us that the matter is pending and that there will be no problem. We sent all the necessary documents in February, explaining who will be financing us, from which sources and the like, Misetic said.
The Croatian government has said it will pay the two attorneys a monthly fee of EUR25,000 each, and the recently established Foundation for the Truth about the Homeland War has also said it will finance the general's defence.
Asked whether Gotovina has notified the ICTY Registry of his decision to choose him and Kehoe as his defence attorneys, whether the Registry allowed them to contact their client and whether it sent them briefs and other material relevant to the case, Misetic replied in the affirmative, saying that the tribunal treated him and Kehoe as de facto defence counsel.
Gotovina was indicted in June 2001 for war crimes committed against Serbs in central Croatia during and in the aftermath of the Croatian military operation dubbed Storm in the summer of 1995. He was arrested in Spain on 8 December 2005 after spending four and a half years on the run. At his first appearance before the ICTY on 12 December, he denied all the charges.