Joaquin Navarro Valls, the head of the Holy See press office on Tuesday declined to comment on del Ponte's statement, indicating that in the coming days the Vatican would also not give any official position on the statement made by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Prosecutor del Ponte said in an interview for The Daily Telegraph on-line edition on Tuesday that the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican hierarchy can establish in a matter of days the location where Hague tribunal fugitive Ante Gotovina is hiding, because he is hiding in a Franciscan monastery in Croatia, but they do not want to do it. Del Ponte said she had informed the Vatican about her findings, but that the Vatican refused to cooperate.
The Vatican neither confirmed that the tribunal's chief prosecutor relayed her information to the Holy See Foreign Minister Giovanni Lajola who she said told her that the Vatican was not a country, and, as a result, it has no international obligations to help the United Nations in the hunt for war criminals.
Del Ponte reportedly wrote to the pope, but this was not confirmed by the Vatican.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Croatian Bishops' Conference (HBK) public relations office dismissed accusations levelled by Carla del Ponte, against the Holy See and the Catholic Church in Croatia, stating that her allegations were unacceptable and unusual for the institution she represented.
Commenting on del Ponte's claims, the head of the HBK public relations office, Anton Suljic, said the leadership of the Catholic Church in Croatia "has no information whatsoever or indications concerning the whereabouts of the runaway general Gotovina".
In a statement carried by the Catholic news agency IKA, Suljic said they were aware that the chief prosecutor could be frustrated for whatever reasons and that some of her allegations could originate from her frustration, but added that it was very unusual to level unfounded blanket accusations in the said manner and through the media against the highest representatives of the Holy See, including Pope Benedict XVI and Catholic bishops in Croatia.