Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor of the UN international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, told The Daily Telegraph she believed that "General Ante Gotovina was being sheltered in a Franciscan monastery in his native Croatia."
She was quoted by the daily as saying that she has "information he is hiding in a Franciscan monastery and so the Catholic Church is protecting him. I have taken this up with the Vatican and the Vatican refuses totally to co-operate with us".
Del Ponte travelled to Rome in July to share her intelligence with the Vatican State Secretary, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo. He refused to help, telling her the Vatican was not a state and thus had no international obligations to help the UN to hunt war criminals, she was quoted as saying.
The press release issued by Navarro-Valls explains the course of the July meeting between Del Ponte and Lajolo.
Responding to her request for information, Msgr. Lajolo explained that the State Secretariat was not a body of the Holy See which could in an institutionalised manner cooperate with courts.
Archbishop Lajolo asked Del Ponte to show indications which made her believe that General Ante Gotovina was hiding in buildings belonging to the Catholic Church so "that we could contact relevant Church authorities," reads the press release from the Vatican, adding that previous investigations in that regard gave negative results.
"Ms. Del Ponte has not responded to Msgr. Lajolo's request in any way," the press release reads.
So, this is not a comment by the Holy See but only an explanation of the course of the meeting between Msgr. Lajolo and Del Ponte, Navarro-Valls stated.