ZAGREB - Croatian President Stipe Mesic said Monday that a fugitive war crimes suspect jeopardising Zagreb's bid to join the European Union was not hiding in the country as alleged by UN prosecutors.
"Now we have reports from all (security and intelligence) services and he is really not in Croatia," Mesic said quoted by the HINA news agency, referring to Ante Gotovina, a commander during Croatia's 1991-1995 independence war.
Mesic spoke a few days after police launched a probe into press allegations that they had issued Gotovina a forged passport with which he fled the country in 2001, when he was indicted by the UN war crimes court at The Hague.
The EU refused to open membership talks with Croatia as scheduled on March 17 due to its failure to help find the 49-year-old fugitive.
Meanwhile, the head of Croatia's criminal police department was dismissed from his position because of its failures linked with the Gotovina case, the interior ministry spokesman said.
Dragutin Cestar was dismissed for failures in organisation of the criminal police department's work which were noticed during investigations linked with the Gotovina case, spokesman Zlatko Mehun said without elaborating.
Gotovina is wanted for the alleged murder of at least 150 ethnic Serbs at the end of the war that pitted Zagreb's forces against secessionist Serbs.
On April 26, EU officials are to meet in Brussels with Croatian leaders and chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte to discuss Zagreb's cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Croatia hopes to begin EU membership talks by the end of June and join the 25-nation bloc by the end of the decade.
04/18/2005 17:25 GMT