Thursday, December 08, 2005
Gen Ante Gotovina arrested while dineing in Canary Islands resort.
Thanks again Mario, there are quite a few accounts of the arrest over at Mario's Cyberspace Station. NPR picked up the story for Morning Edition, but it was a typical Balkans Blipvert Story.
Spoiler Alert, love the alias Kristian Horvat! He was useing a fake Croatian passport with that moniker.*update, besides the fake passport in the name of 'Kristian Horvat' Gotevina was carrying a weapon, and had body guards.
Focus English News, Bulgaria
Croatian General Ante Gotovina who was wanted by the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague was arrested in Spain, chief prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal Carla del Ponte reported. There is no detailed information regarding the arrest of Gotovina.
In 2001, the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague accused General Gotovina of war crimes against Serb civilians during a Croatian offensive to expel Serb forces from the country in 1995.
FOCUS News Agency reminds:
Ante Gotovina (born October 12, 1955) is a Croat professional soldier and fugitive from the International War Crimes Tribunal.
Gotovina was born on the island of Pašman near Zadar. He was a member of the French Foreign Legion, under the name of Ivan Grabovac, beginning in the early 1970s. He was affected to the 2nd regiment of parachutist, based in Calvi, Corsica. It was there he met Dominique Erulin, brother of colonel Philippe Erulin, known for his activities in Algeria. In 1978, the 2nd regiment jumped on Kolwezi, in Zaire. Gotovina was the driver of Coronel Erulin. After five years, he left the Legion, and gained French nationality in 1979.
Gotovina then engaged himself in various security offices, among them KO international company, which is a filial of VHP Security. This firm is known as a cover for the Service d'action civique (SAC), specialists of shady actions for the gaullist movement. KO international also assured at this time Jean-Marie Le Pen's security.
In 1981, with his friend Dominique Erulin, he helped editor Jean-Pierre Mouchard, a close friend of Jean-Marie Le Pen. The two men organised a comando to free Jean-Pierre Mouchard's press in La Seyne sur Mer, occupied by CGT strikers.
Gotovina and Erulin then went to Latin America, where they assembled paramilitary formations, notably in Argentina and Guatemala.
In 1990, Ante Gotovina returned to his native land, Croatia. When the war in Croatia began in 1991, he became a commander in the Croatian Army. He advanced from Brigadier in 1992 to Major-General in 1994. He was the commanding officer of the Split military district between 1992 and 1996; including the 1995 Operation Storm. In 1996 he became the Chief of the Croatian Army Inspectorate, but was dismissed from the active service in 2000, having been accused of plotting a military coup by Ivo Pukanic of Nacional. Gotovina was still a member of the Paris-based Assistance Sécurité Protection, and may have been in Paraguay and Argentina in 1990 and 1991.
Gotovina was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in May 21th 2001 for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war that the court claims troops under his command committed over the Serbs in the self-proclaimed Krajina region during and after Operation Storm, which was started on August 4, 1995 (during which the Serb-occupied territories of Croatia were restored) with the backing of Bill Clinton and the United States. General Gotovina has been charged with the death of at least 150 Serbs in 1995, while forces under his command are accused of killing scores of Serbs and of having expelling up to 200,000 from the Krajina region, now part of Croatia.
Gotovina, however, fled and remains at large, allegedly out of reach of both Croatian authorities and the Interpol. The USA has placed a $2,800,000 bounty on his head. Rumors abound as to his present whereabouts. In September 2005, the BBC reported that he is hiding out in a Franciscan monastery somewhere in Croatia or Bosnian Croat territory. A suitcase with personal items and news clips had been found in southern Italy allegedly meant for Gotovina, but the authorities could not confirm this. Gotovina has also been linked to several organized crime groups, notably those helping one Hrvoje Petrač who is wanted for questioning on unrelated matters.
The majority of allegations of criminality originate from Ivo Pukanic and his Nacional magazine. Between 1999-2000, Nacional launched a series of scathing attacks against former war veterans and leading HDZ figures in the run-up to a crucial governmental election.
Ivo Pukanic was the very first to attack Gotovina personally accusing him and his colleagues of drunkedness, cowardice and dishonour. Pukanic also accused Gotovina as being the chief instigator in an alleged presidential coup (Nacional 204, 13.10.1999.) At the same time, Nacional accused unidentified senior ministry of defence (MORH) officials, of which Gotovina was chief inspectorate, of arms fixing with the IRA and ETA.
Pukanic's Nacional also accused Gotovina of responsibility for General Blaskic's 45 year sentence (Nacional 250, 31/08/2000); and thuggery (Nacional 255, 5.10.2000.) The British media is eager to promote Pukanic as a key champion of Gotovina's cause; which has reportedly caused some consternation amongst his sympathisers.
Pukanic's financial condition was dire immediately prior to Gotovina's disappearance and many consider him as commercially exploiting the general's cause. Due to his track record of hostility against the general, the denouncement of supporters and associates, and self-confessed close friendship with chief police officers working alongside MI6 operatives in Operation Cash - the undercover operation to catch Gotovina - ; Pukanic is viewed with great distrust. His allegations of criminality against Gotovina, later picked up by the international media, have never been substantiated.
In September 2005, Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, accused the Vatican of protecting him. She said the Vatican could probably pinpoint exactly in which of Croatia's 80 Franciscan monasteries he was being sheltered "in a few days" as she told [The Daily Telegraph]. She said: "I have information 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." Her spokeswoman told [BBC news network] that she had contacted Pope Benedict XVI in July 2005, via Vatican's "foreign minister", Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, in an effort to secure the Vatican's cooperation, but that the Pope has yet to reply to the prosecutor's request for a meeting. Giovanni Lajolo told her that the Vatican wasn't a state and thus had "no international obligations" to help the United Nations to hunt war criminals. Henceforth, in September, Carla del Ponte decided to make public her information, declaring that Gotovina was hiding in a Croatian Franciscan monastery. The Franciscans denied this information, without hiding their clear admiration for Gotovina. The Croat Minister of the Interior admitted having information on Gotovina's having been hidden in a Croatian monastery, before retracting themself, saying that further investigation showed that this was "incorrect".
The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and some Scandinavian states currently oppose Croat intentions to join the European Union if the Croatian Government does not fully cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal. The Croat government has declared that it does not know the current location of Gotovina and that the authorities are doing their utmost to find the General and to extradite him to the Tribunal. Accession negotiations with the EU, scheduled to start on March 17, 2005, were postponed because Gotovina was not located. Austria, has taken Croatia's side, and finally accepted in october 2005 to support Turkey's accession to those negotiations in exchange of Zagreb's one.
Effectively, in February 2005, general's allies inside Croat intelligence outed several war crimes investigators in Croatia as serving MI6 and USA intelligence officers, as reported by the Daily Telegraph on September 29, 2004. A few months before, in August 2004, SIS station chief Anthony Monckton was forced to leave his post in Serbia after a campaign against him led by that country's DB intelligence agency, where his work investigating the 2003 assassination of reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic won him few friends. In February 2004, Zoran Mijatovic, former #2 in the Serb DB, published a book including Monckton's name and picture. The SIS (UK's secret intelligence services) efforts were determined to capture Slobodan Milosevic, and it is now involved in the hunt for Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and Ante Gotovina.
Franjo Turek was ousted as the head of the POA after resisting SIS demands for increased access to information about Ante Gotovina's whereabouts. Croatia's Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader, replaced Franjo Turek with Josko Podbevsek.
The next month (March 2005), Britain led a successful campaign to halt the planned opening of talks with Croatia on joining the European Union, which were to start on March 17, 2005. President Stjepan Mesić declared that Croat entry to the EU cannot be delayed indefinitely because of Gotovina, because if he were one day found in Patagonia, the injustice and the irrepairable damage to the Croat reputation and economy would already have been done. Mesić did point out that if the Croatian government had any clues whether Gotovina is in Patagonia or anywhere else, that it was its duty to promptly submit that info to the ICTY investigators.
Among a section of the Croat population, Gotovina is seen as a war hero to be admired. Croatians are divided over the issue of extradition to the ICTY because of several issues: whether trying an important general casts a shadow on what is mostly perceived as a just and lawful Operation Storm, and on the other hand whether it is correct to flee from a legal institution when others in similar position (such as former Croat Muslim General Rahim Ademi) have submitted themselves to such authorities. Many individuals and parties use hostility towards the ICTY to enhance their influence and clout.
Many posters of Ante Gotovina have been placed on privately-owned land in Croatia, mostly by veteran unions. In the region of his origin, in and around Zadar, even the buildings owned by the municipal government were plastered with Gotovina's pictures at one point. Some posters have been removed by the authorities, while some were subject to vandalism.
The newspapers in Croatia have also investigated into Gotovina's whereabouts, and the editor of Nacional Ivo Pukanić claims to have met him on an undisclosed location in the EU, and that weekly published an interview in 2003 from that occasion. In 2003, the weekly Feral Tribune ran a story about Gotovina quoting several French court records saying that Gotovina was convicted of a 1981 robbery and that he served five years in prison between 1986 and 1991. On February 19, 2005, the Croat daily newspaper, Jutarnji list, published facsimiles of those documents, which provoked a political upheaval and scandal in Croatia. Former Prime Minister, Ivica Račan (Social Democrats), the ex-ministers of the Defense and the Interior, and the ex-chief of Croatian security services all claim that French authorities never passed information about Ante Gotovina's criminal past to them. Šime Lučin, ex-ministry of Police, declared to Jutarnji list that he had read some articles in the press about the 1981 robbery, but that he had never received confirmation from France about it.
There is some discussion whether, as a former member of the French Foreign Legion, Gotovina was during this time in the employ of Gaullist first, and then François Mitterrand's extra-legal secret service. Another document stated that in 1993 he was convicted to two years in prison due to participation in an unlawful arrest, kidnapping and extortion, and another yet said that he was sentenced to 30 months for extortion in 1995. Gotovina's attorneys denied these allegations saying that the documents are falsified because he was given a French passport in 1995 and had it renewed in 2001, something the French authorities would never have done had he actually been a convicted criminal on the run.
On April 11, 2001, six weeks before his indictment by the International Penal Tribunal for War Crimes, he received a French passport from the French Embassy in Zagreb. Of course, at this time, all concerned were aware of his upcoming official indictment.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested in Spain, U.N. chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in Belgrade on Thursday, Reuters announced.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
His evasion from arrest had been a key obstacle in Croatia's attempts to join the European Union, whose leaders were for a long time skeptical over how hard the government in Zagreb was trying to track down a man many Croats see as a national hero.
"Ante Gotovina is arrested. He was arrested this night in Spain in the Isle of Canary and he is now in detention, finally. He will be transferred to the Hague," Del Ponte said in English.
No official reaction was immediately available from Croatian authorities. Spanish officials also declined comment.
"Considering the source, we should treat the information of his arrest as reliable. I expect he will be handed over and arraigned very soon because he was arrested abroad," his lawyer Marijan Pedisic told Reuters by telephone from Zagreb.
Croatia has claimed all along that Gotovina, a former French Foreign Legion veteran, fled the country just before his indictment was made public in July 2001.
However, it stepped up the hunt for him after the EU delayed the start of Zagreb's membership talks in March, and ordered all police and intelligence agents to do their utmost, including liaising with foreign services.
The efforts paid off and the EU opened accession talks with Zagreb in October, after Del Ponte said she was satisfied with Croatia's efforts.
Serbia has faced similar international criticism over the continued freedom of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic. Gotovina's arrest will only intensify the pressure on Belgrade to help catch them.
Del Ponte said she was very grateful to Croatian and Spanish authorities.
"Since September, we are working to find Gotovina...finally we could achieve that so Gotovina is in detention. Of course I am expecting now Mladic and Karadzic and the other fugitives."
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested last night on the Canary Islands in Spain and will soon be transferred to The Hague, Serbian RTS TV reports.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested in Spain, U.N. chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in Belgrade on Thursday, cited by AFP.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader confirmed the information about the arrest of Gen. Ante Gotovina, the Croatian HINA agency reports.
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested last night on the Canary Islands in Spain and will soon be transferred to The Hague.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
A Croatian general charged with war crimes has been held in Spain, the UN's chief war crimes prosecutor has said, BBC reports.
Ante Gotovina was one of the most wanted men from the 1990s Balkan wars.
He is accused of war crimes against Serb civilians during a 1995 Croatian offensive to expel Serb forces from the country.
Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, had repeatedly sought Gen Gotovina's detention.
She had criticised Croatian efforts to arrest the general.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested last night on the Canary Islands in Spain and will soon be transferred to The Hague, Die Welt informs.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
The chief prosecutor of the Hague war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte, said in Belgrade on Thursday that fugitive Croatian general Ante Gotovina was arrested on the Canary Islands on Wednesday, the Bosnian FENA agency reports.
Steps are being taken to transfer him to The Hague, del Ponte's spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said.
Del Ponte, who is visiting Belgrade today, spoke on the phone with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader regarding the matter, Hartmann said, adding that the chief prosecutor thanked Croatia for cooperation.
General Gotovina was indicted in 2001 for crimes committed in the course and after the 1995 Operation Storm and he had been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested last night on the Canary Islands in Spain and will soon be transferred to The Hague, Der Standart informs.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested in Spain, U.N. chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in Belgrade on Thursday, El Mundo announced.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Gotovina arrested, Del Ponte calls for apprehension of Karadzic
Fugitive Croatian general Ante Gotovina has been arrested last night in Canary Islands in Spain, said the visiting Hague Tribunal's chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, the Macedonian Makfax iforms.
She added that Gotovina would be extradited to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Del Ponte expressed gratitude to Croatian and Spanish authorities on the co-operation and assistance in course of apprehension of the runaway general.
Del Ponte said the operation has been going on since September this year.
Del Ponte, who attends a conference on the rule of law, expects timely extradition of Hague's fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
The indictment charges Gotovina with atrocities against Serb civilians in course of the operation codenamed Storm.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, is due to appear before a Spanish high court judge on Thursday afternoon, a court source said on Thursday, Reuters comments.
He was likely to face proceedings to extradite him to The Hague where the U.N. court sits as soon as possible, the source added.
Gotovina was arrested at a hotel on the Spanish island of Tenerife on Wednesday afternoon, the source said.
State radio said he was being transported to Madrid on a military plane.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
"The prime minister has congratulated security forces for this brilliant and important police operation which has allowed the capture of one of the most wanted war criminals in the Balkans," a Spanish government official said.
Spoiler Alert, love the alias Kristian Horvat! He was useing a fake Croatian passport with that moniker.*update, besides the fake passport in the name of 'Kristian Horvat' Gotevina was carrying a weapon, and had body guards.
Focus English News, Bulgaria
Croatian General Ante Gotovina who was wanted by the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague was arrested in Spain, chief prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal Carla del Ponte reported. There is no detailed information regarding the arrest of Gotovina.
In 2001, the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague accused General Gotovina of war crimes against Serb civilians during a Croatian offensive to expel Serb forces from the country in 1995.
FOCUS News Agency reminds:
Ante Gotovina (born October 12, 1955) is a Croat professional soldier and fugitive from the International War Crimes Tribunal.
Gotovina was born on the island of Pašman near Zadar. He was a member of the French Foreign Legion, under the name of Ivan Grabovac, beginning in the early 1970s. He was affected to the 2nd regiment of parachutist, based in Calvi, Corsica. It was there he met Dominique Erulin, brother of colonel Philippe Erulin, known for his activities in Algeria. In 1978, the 2nd regiment jumped on Kolwezi, in Zaire. Gotovina was the driver of Coronel Erulin. After five years, he left the Legion, and gained French nationality in 1979.
Gotovina then engaged himself in various security offices, among them KO international company, which is a filial of VHP Security. This firm is known as a cover for the Service d'action civique (SAC), specialists of shady actions for the gaullist movement. KO international also assured at this time Jean-Marie Le Pen's security.
In 1981, with his friend Dominique Erulin, he helped editor Jean-Pierre Mouchard, a close friend of Jean-Marie Le Pen. The two men organised a comando to free Jean-Pierre Mouchard's press in La Seyne sur Mer, occupied by CGT strikers.
Gotovina and Erulin then went to Latin America, where they assembled paramilitary formations, notably in Argentina and Guatemala.
In 1990, Ante Gotovina returned to his native land, Croatia. When the war in Croatia began in 1991, he became a commander in the Croatian Army. He advanced from Brigadier in 1992 to Major-General in 1994. He was the commanding officer of the Split military district between 1992 and 1996; including the 1995 Operation Storm. In 1996 he became the Chief of the Croatian Army Inspectorate, but was dismissed from the active service in 2000, having been accused of plotting a military coup by Ivo Pukanic of Nacional. Gotovina was still a member of the Paris-based Assistance Sécurité Protection, and may have been in Paraguay and Argentina in 1990 and 1991.
Gotovina was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in May 21th 2001 for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war that the court claims troops under his command committed over the Serbs in the self-proclaimed Krajina region during and after Operation Storm, which was started on August 4, 1995 (during which the Serb-occupied territories of Croatia were restored) with the backing of Bill Clinton and the United States. General Gotovina has been charged with the death of at least 150 Serbs in 1995, while forces under his command are accused of killing scores of Serbs and of having expelling up to 200,000 from the Krajina region, now part of Croatia.
Gotovina, however, fled and remains at large, allegedly out of reach of both Croatian authorities and the Interpol. The USA has placed a $2,800,000 bounty on his head. Rumors abound as to his present whereabouts. In September 2005, the BBC reported that he is hiding out in a Franciscan monastery somewhere in Croatia or Bosnian Croat territory. A suitcase with personal items and news clips had been found in southern Italy allegedly meant for Gotovina, but the authorities could not confirm this. Gotovina has also been linked to several organized crime groups, notably those helping one Hrvoje Petrač who is wanted for questioning on unrelated matters.
The majority of allegations of criminality originate from Ivo Pukanic and his Nacional magazine. Between 1999-2000, Nacional launched a series of scathing attacks against former war veterans and leading HDZ figures in the run-up to a crucial governmental election.
Ivo Pukanic was the very first to attack Gotovina personally accusing him and his colleagues of drunkedness, cowardice and dishonour. Pukanic also accused Gotovina as being the chief instigator in an alleged presidential coup (Nacional 204, 13.10.1999.) At the same time, Nacional accused unidentified senior ministry of defence (MORH) officials, of which Gotovina was chief inspectorate, of arms fixing with the IRA and ETA.
Pukanic's Nacional also accused Gotovina of responsibility for General Blaskic's 45 year sentence (Nacional 250, 31/08/2000); and thuggery (Nacional 255, 5.10.2000.) The British media is eager to promote Pukanic as a key champion of Gotovina's cause; which has reportedly caused some consternation amongst his sympathisers.
Pukanic's financial condition was dire immediately prior to Gotovina's disappearance and many consider him as commercially exploiting the general's cause. Due to his track record of hostility against the general, the denouncement of supporters and associates, and self-confessed close friendship with chief police officers working alongside MI6 operatives in Operation Cash - the undercover operation to catch Gotovina - ; Pukanic is viewed with great distrust. His allegations of criminality against Gotovina, later picked up by the international media, have never been substantiated.
In September 2005, Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, accused the Vatican of protecting him. She said the Vatican could probably pinpoint exactly in which of Croatia's 80 Franciscan monasteries he was being sheltered "in a few days" as she told [The Daily Telegraph]. She said: "I have information 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." Her spokeswoman told [BBC news network] that she had contacted Pope Benedict XVI in July 2005, via Vatican's "foreign minister", Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, in an effort to secure the Vatican's cooperation, but that the Pope has yet to reply to the prosecutor's request for a meeting. Giovanni Lajolo told her that the Vatican wasn't a state and thus had "no international obligations" to help the United Nations to hunt war criminals. Henceforth, in September, Carla del Ponte decided to make public her information, declaring that Gotovina was hiding in a Croatian Franciscan monastery. The Franciscans denied this information, without hiding their clear admiration for Gotovina. The Croat Minister of the Interior admitted having information on Gotovina's having been hidden in a Croatian monastery, before retracting themself, saying that further investigation showed that this was "incorrect".
The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and some Scandinavian states currently oppose Croat intentions to join the European Union if the Croatian Government does not fully cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal. The Croat government has declared that it does not know the current location of Gotovina and that the authorities are doing their utmost to find the General and to extradite him to the Tribunal. Accession negotiations with the EU, scheduled to start on March 17, 2005, were postponed because Gotovina was not located. Austria, has taken Croatia's side, and finally accepted in october 2005 to support Turkey's accession to those negotiations in exchange of Zagreb's one.
Effectively, in February 2005, general's allies inside Croat intelligence outed several war crimes investigators in Croatia as serving MI6 and USA intelligence officers, as reported by the Daily Telegraph on September 29, 2004. A few months before, in August 2004, SIS station chief Anthony Monckton was forced to leave his post in Serbia after a campaign against him led by that country's DB intelligence agency, where his work investigating the 2003 assassination of reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic won him few friends. In February 2004, Zoran Mijatovic, former #2 in the Serb DB, published a book including Monckton's name and picture. The SIS (UK's secret intelligence services) efforts were determined to capture Slobodan Milosevic, and it is now involved in the hunt for Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and Ante Gotovina.
Franjo Turek was ousted as the head of the POA after resisting SIS demands for increased access to information about Ante Gotovina's whereabouts. Croatia's Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader, replaced Franjo Turek with Josko Podbevsek.
The next month (March 2005), Britain led a successful campaign to halt the planned opening of talks with Croatia on joining the European Union, which were to start on March 17, 2005. President Stjepan Mesić declared that Croat entry to the EU cannot be delayed indefinitely because of Gotovina, because if he were one day found in Patagonia, the injustice and the irrepairable damage to the Croat reputation and economy would already have been done. Mesić did point out that if the Croatian government had any clues whether Gotovina is in Patagonia or anywhere else, that it was its duty to promptly submit that info to the ICTY investigators.
Among a section of the Croat population, Gotovina is seen as a war hero to be admired. Croatians are divided over the issue of extradition to the ICTY because of several issues: whether trying an important general casts a shadow on what is mostly perceived as a just and lawful Operation Storm, and on the other hand whether it is correct to flee from a legal institution when others in similar position (such as former Croat Muslim General Rahim Ademi) have submitted themselves to such authorities. Many individuals and parties use hostility towards the ICTY to enhance their influence and clout.
Many posters of Ante Gotovina have been placed on privately-owned land in Croatia, mostly by veteran unions. In the region of his origin, in and around Zadar, even the buildings owned by the municipal government were plastered with Gotovina's pictures at one point. Some posters have been removed by the authorities, while some were subject to vandalism.
The newspapers in Croatia have also investigated into Gotovina's whereabouts, and the editor of Nacional Ivo Pukanić claims to have met him on an undisclosed location in the EU, and that weekly published an interview in 2003 from that occasion. In 2003, the weekly Feral Tribune ran a story about Gotovina quoting several French court records saying that Gotovina was convicted of a 1981 robbery and that he served five years in prison between 1986 and 1991. On February 19, 2005, the Croat daily newspaper, Jutarnji list, published facsimiles of those documents, which provoked a political upheaval and scandal in Croatia. Former Prime Minister, Ivica Račan (Social Democrats), the ex-ministers of the Defense and the Interior, and the ex-chief of Croatian security services all claim that French authorities never passed information about Ante Gotovina's criminal past to them. Šime Lučin, ex-ministry of Police, declared to Jutarnji list that he had read some articles in the press about the 1981 robbery, but that he had never received confirmation from France about it.
There is some discussion whether, as a former member of the French Foreign Legion, Gotovina was during this time in the employ of Gaullist first, and then François Mitterrand's extra-legal secret service. Another document stated that in 1993 he was convicted to two years in prison due to participation in an unlawful arrest, kidnapping and extortion, and another yet said that he was sentenced to 30 months for extortion in 1995. Gotovina's attorneys denied these allegations saying that the documents are falsified because he was given a French passport in 1995 and had it renewed in 2001, something the French authorities would never have done had he actually been a convicted criminal on the run.
On April 11, 2001, six weeks before his indictment by the International Penal Tribunal for War Crimes, he received a French passport from the French Embassy in Zagreb. Of course, at this time, all concerned were aware of his upcoming official indictment.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested in Spain, U.N. chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in Belgrade on Thursday, Reuters announced.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
His evasion from arrest had been a key obstacle in Croatia's attempts to join the European Union, whose leaders were for a long time skeptical over how hard the government in Zagreb was trying to track down a man many Croats see as a national hero.
"Ante Gotovina is arrested. He was arrested this night in Spain in the Isle of Canary and he is now in detention, finally. He will be transferred to the Hague," Del Ponte said in English.
No official reaction was immediately available from Croatian authorities. Spanish officials also declined comment.
"Considering the source, we should treat the information of his arrest as reliable. I expect he will be handed over and arraigned very soon because he was arrested abroad," his lawyer Marijan Pedisic told Reuters by telephone from Zagreb.
Croatia has claimed all along that Gotovina, a former French Foreign Legion veteran, fled the country just before his indictment was made public in July 2001.
However, it stepped up the hunt for him after the EU delayed the start of Zagreb's membership talks in March, and ordered all police and intelligence agents to do their utmost, including liaising with foreign services.
The efforts paid off and the EU opened accession talks with Zagreb in October, after Del Ponte said she was satisfied with Croatia's efforts.
Serbia has faced similar international criticism over the continued freedom of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic. Gotovina's arrest will only intensify the pressure on Belgrade to help catch them.
Del Ponte said she was very grateful to Croatian and Spanish authorities.
"Since September, we are working to find Gotovina...finally we could achieve that so Gotovina is in detention. Of course I am expecting now Mladic and Karadzic and the other fugitives."
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested last night on the Canary Islands in Spain and will soon be transferred to The Hague, Serbian RTS TV reports.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested in Spain, U.N. chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in Belgrade on Thursday, cited by AFP.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader confirmed the information about the arrest of Gen. Ante Gotovina, the Croatian HINA agency reports.
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested last night on the Canary Islands in Spain and will soon be transferred to The Hague.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
A Croatian general charged with war crimes has been held in Spain, the UN's chief war crimes prosecutor has said, BBC reports.
Ante Gotovina was one of the most wanted men from the 1990s Balkan wars.
He is accused of war crimes against Serb civilians during a 1995 Croatian offensive to expel Serb forces from the country.
Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, had repeatedly sought Gen Gotovina's detention.
She had criticised Croatian efforts to arrest the general.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested last night on the Canary Islands in Spain and will soon be transferred to The Hague, Die Welt informs.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
The chief prosecutor of the Hague war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte, said in Belgrade on Thursday that fugitive Croatian general Ante Gotovina was arrested on the Canary Islands on Wednesday, the Bosnian FENA agency reports.
Steps are being taken to transfer him to The Hague, del Ponte's spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said.
Del Ponte, who is visiting Belgrade today, spoke on the phone with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader regarding the matter, Hartmann said, adding that the chief prosecutor thanked Croatia for cooperation.
General Gotovina was indicted in 2001 for crimes committed in the course and after the 1995 Operation Storm and he had been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested last night on the Canary Islands in Spain and will soon be transferred to The Hague, Der Standart informs.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, has been arrested in Spain, U.N. chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said in Belgrade on Thursday, El Mundo announced.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
FOCUS News Agency
Gotovina arrested, Del Ponte calls for apprehension of Karadzic
Fugitive Croatian general Ante Gotovina has been arrested last night in Canary Islands in Spain, said the visiting Hague Tribunal's chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, the Macedonian Makfax iforms.
She added that Gotovina would be extradited to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Del Ponte expressed gratitude to Croatian and Spanish authorities on the co-operation and assistance in course of apprehension of the runaway general.
Del Ponte said the operation has been going on since September this year.
Del Ponte, who attends a conference on the rule of law, expects timely extradition of Hague's fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
The indictment charges Gotovina with atrocities against Serb civilians in course of the operation codenamed Storm.
FOCUS News Agency
Fugitive Croatian General Ante Gotovina, wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, is due to appear before a Spanish high court judge on Thursday afternoon, a court source said on Thursday, Reuters comments.
He was likely to face proceedings to extradite him to The Hague where the U.N. court sits as soon as possible, the source added.
Gotovina was arrested at a hotel on the Spanish island of Tenerife on Wednesday afternoon, the source said.
State radio said he was being transported to Madrid on a military plane.
Gotovina was indicted in July 2001 for alleged atrocities against rebel Serbs in a government offensive in August 1995 to retake rebel areas of Croatia, and has been on the run since.
"The prime minister has congratulated security forces for this brilliant and important police operation which has allowed the capture of one of the most wanted war criminals in the Balkans," a Spanish government official said.
# posted by Katja R. @ 9:08 AM 
