Vatican denies it is hiding Croatian general accused of war crimes

Published: 2005-09-20

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls Sept. 20 denied reports that the Vatican Secretariat of State has attempted to help hide a Croatian general accused of war crimes. 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." The prosecutor said, "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."

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