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VATICAN-GOTOVINA (UPDATED) Sep-22-2005 (430 words) With photo posted Sept. 20. xxxi
Vatican denies it is hiding Croatian general accused of war crimes
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican spokesman denied reports that the Vatican Secretariat of State has attempted to help hide a Croatian general accused of war crimes.
Croatian bishops and government officials also have denied the accused general is hiding under church protection.
Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor for the U.N. international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, told a London newspaper she believes Gen. Ante Gotovina is hiding in a Franciscan monastery in Croatia.
In an interview published Sept. 20 in The Daily Telegraph, she said she had met with Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, Vatican foreign minister, in July seeking the Vatican's help in discovering which of roughly 80 monasteries in Croatia was sheltering the general.
"They said they have no intelligence and I don't believe that," she told the Telegraph. "I think that the Catholic Church has the most advanced intelligence services."
"Msgr. Lajolo said to me, 'Let me know in which monastery Gotovina is hiding.' I said, if I knew, I would not be here in Rome," the prosecutor said.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Sept. 20, "The Secretariat of State is not an organ of the Holy See that can collaborate institutionally with tribunals."
He said Archbishop Lajolo asked del Ponte to explain why she believed the general was hiding in a monastery and to provide some indication of which monastery it might be so that he could contact local church authorities.
Previous investigations of rumors that the general was hiding in a church building "had a negative outcome," Navarro-Valls said.
The spokesman said that as of Sept. 20 del Ponte had provided the Vatican with no further details about her suspicions.
Croatia's bishops said del Ponte's accusations "put forward a whole series of unacceptable theories that would even seem extraordinary for a colloquial conversation, not to mention for the high authority that she represents."
"The leadership of the Catholic Church in Croatia has no knowledge whatsoever or any indication where the fugitive Gen. Gotovina could be," the bishops said. They asked the U.N. international tribunal for an explanation of del Ponte's comments.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader told journalists Sept. 21 he was unaware of the basis for the prosecutor's allegations.
Gotovina was indicted in 2001 on charges that he was the commanding officer responsible for atrocities committed in 1995 as Croatian forces attempted to reclaim control of the Krajina region. Some 150 Serb civilians were killed and more than 150,000 were displaced.
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Contributing to this story was Jonathan Luxmoore in Oxford, England.
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Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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