ZAGREB, June 11 (Hina) - Prime Minister Ivica Racan said on Wednesday he believed that had Ante Gotovina been recommended or allowed to speak to investigators from the Hague war crimes tribunal in 1998, the fugitive general would have
been able to answer certain questions and that developments with the indictment against him would have been different.
ZAGREB, June 11 (Hina) - Prime Minister Ivica Racan said on
Wednesday he believed that had Ante Gotovina been recommended or
allowed to speak to investigators from the Hague war crimes
tribunal in 1998, the fugitive general would have been able to
answer certain questions and that developments with the indictment
against him would have been different. #L#
"I expect those involved at that time to say something and assume
their share of the responsibility," Racan said during question time
in parliament to Anto Kovacevic of the Christian Democrats, who
wanted to know who would be held to account for the fact that
Gotovina was not enabled to speak to the Hague's investigators five
years ago.
"Everything that happened needn't have happened," said the PM. "It
was far easier to raise a fuss over the indictment than consider why
it had to happen."
Racan reiterated Gotovina would have to appear before the Hague
court as a defendant. He is confident that with the government's
help, Gotovina will manage to defend himself from the contentious
parts of the indictment.
The PM recalled he and his cabinet had not agreed with the key points
in the Gotovina indictment.
He also reminded MPs of his June 2001 letter to chief prosecutor
Carla Del Ponte, as well as of the government's reply to an
interpellation by opposition MPs concerning the Gotovina case,
saying that both documents expressed his cabinet's willingness to
participate in a certain way in Gotovina's defence once the trial
started.
The PM did not answer Kovacevic's question whether the government
would ask for a revision of the indictment, considering that a
Croatian weekly has found Serb civilians, which the indictment
claims were killed after 1995's Operation Storm, to be alive.
Commenting on Gotovina's recent interview with Nacional weekly,
Interior Minister Sime Lucin said it had not been the author of the
interview who had contacted Gotovina but that the retired general
had got in touch with Ivo Pukanic via a mediator.
Pukanic said he met Gotovina abroad, Lucin told Marin Jurjevic of
the Social Democrats, who asked how had Pukanic managed to reach
Gotovina when the police could not.
(hina) ha