Chief UN prosecutor Carla del Ponte dealt a serious blow today to Croatia's hopes of opening European Union membership talks this month by accusing Zagreb of failing to do enough to find a top war crimes suspect.
She said she had shown European President Luxembourg evidence proving that Zagreb had spied on her investigators, thwarting their efforts to track down General Ante Gotovina.
EU leaders have told Croatia its membership talks will not start on March 17th as scheduled unless it arrests Gotovina, indicted for crimes against humanity but seen by many Croats as a hero of the 1991-95 independence war.
Ms Del Ponte said she had passed on to the Croatian government a list of those she believed were protecting Gotovina, but some ministers had questioned the names on her list. Zagreb had not hunted him down, hoping he would surrender voluntarily.
"We know they are not doing all they can. We proved that," Ms Del Ponte said. "They are not ready to arrest him, probably because of political motivation."
Zagreb is trying to persuade its allies within the EU that it is making genuine efforts to find Gotovina, who faces charges that his troops killed Serb civilians and burned their houses in a 1995 offensive against rebel Croatian Serbs.
The Croatian government has stepped up the hunt for Gotovina, interrogating friends and supporters, but this has prompted protests by war veterans and pushed popular support for EU membership down to historic lows.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said last week he still believed membership talks could start on time, even if Gotovina - in hiding since he was indicted in 2001 - was not in custody.
Diplomats say that if EU foreign ministers decide at a meeting on March 16th to postpone the start of talks, they will probably not set a new deadline but say the EU is ready to open negotiations at any time once Croatia cooperates fully.