Vatican 'hinders' war crimes hunt

[cal04]

The Vatican is helping Croatia's most wanted war crimes suspect evade capture, a top UN prosecutor alleges. Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, said she believes Gen Ante Gotovina is hiding in a monastery in Croatia.

Ms del Ponte's spokeswoman told the BBC News website that the Vatican had refused to help in the search for him despite being in a position to do so. A Vatican spokesman refused to comment on the allegation. Mr Gotovina has been charged with the deaths of 150 Serb civilians in 1995. Earlier this year, the European Union cited Zagreb's failure to arrest him as the reason behind delaying talks on Croatia's entry into bloc.

Forces under Mr Gotovina's command are accused of killing scores of Serbs and expelling up to 200,000 from the Krajina region, now part of Croatia. Many in Croatia regard him as a national hero. Croatian authorities have insisted they are doing everything in their power to deliver Gen Gotovina to the UN's war crimes tribunal in the Hague.


Vatican 'refusal'
Ms del Ponte wrote to Pope Benedict XVI in July this year in an effort to secure the Vatican's co-operation, her spokeswoman told the BBC News website.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4263426.stm

[emad]

1. War crimes chief accuses Vatican

War crimes chief accuses Vatican


The Vatican is helping Croatia's most wanted war crimes suspect evade capture, a top UN prosecutor alleges.

Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, has said she believes Gen Ante Gotovina is hiding in a monastery in Croatia.

Ms del Ponte's spokeswoman told the BBC News website that the Vatican had refused to help in the search for him, despite being in a position to do so.

A spokesman for the Croatian Catholic Church rejected the charges.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4263426.stm

[saigon68]

2. Change "war crimes Hunt" to priests molesting children

They are close mouthed about anything affecting their $$$$$$ and pocket books.

[AX10]

4. DAS Vactican is filthy.

Worse than Wall Street.

[pschoeb]

3. The Croatian Ustasha and their ideological offspring

have always been very close to the Vatican's heart.

[emad]

5. UN prosecutor sparks fury with claim Vatican is hiding alleged war crimina

UN prosecutor sparks fury with claim Vatican is hiding alleged war criminal

By Stephen Castle in Brussels
Published: 21 September 2005

The UN's chief war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, was at the centre of a diplomatic row with the Vatican yesterday after claiming that the Roman Catholic Church is shielding Croatia's most wanted man.

Ms Del Ponte provoked anger in Rome and Zagreb when she said that Ante Gotovina, a former general indicted for war crimes, is hiding in a monastery in Croatia.

Her comments come at a sensitive time, since Croatia's bid to start EU membership talks will be re-examined in the next few weeks. Zagreb's ambitions have been put on hold until the authorities there are deemed to be giving full co-operation to the UN's war crimes tribunal.

While Ms Del Ponte highlighted the responsibility of the Church, rather than the state, for shielding Mr Gotovina, her comments also contradict the Croatian government's claims that the general is not on its soil.

Instead Ms Del Ponte told The Daily Telegraph she has information that 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."

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article314016.ece

[Scurrilous]

6. Church rejects charge of harboring war suspect

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/20/news/pope.php

<snip>

"The Roman Catholic Church in Croatia denied Tuesday that it was sheltering a top war crimes suspect, following an allegation by a UN prosecutor that the suspect was hiding in a monastery there and that the Vatican had rebuffed pleas to help track him down."

<snip>


"In a statement on Tuesday, the Vatican acknowledged that del Ponte had met with the Vatican's foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo. He told her, the statement said, that the Vatican's secretary of state was not empowered to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal but asked her to provide more detailed information of her allegations.

She did not respond, said the statement by Joaquín Navarro-Valls, the Vatican's chief spokesman. He said that earlier Vatican inquiries into whether Gotovina was being hidden by the church in Croatia had resulted in the "negative."

Asked about del Ponte's allegation that Gotovina was being hidden in a Franciscan monastery, Anton Suljic, a spokesman for the Croatian bishop's conference, said in a telephone interview: "A Franciscan monastery is a broad definition. She always has information, but she can't say where."

The Croatian prime minister, Ivo Sanader, denied del Ponte's allegation. "All information, including the most recent we have received, does not lead to such a conclusion," he said on Croatian state television."