War crimes indictee Ante Gotovina arrested

08/12/2005

After more than four years on the run, one of the UN war crimes tribunal's most wanted indictees, Ante Gotovina of Croatia, has been arrested and is headed to The Hague on Thursday.

(Various sources - 08/12/05; 21/12/04)

Fugitive retired General Ante Gotovina was arrested in the Canary Islands late Wednesday. [File]

Retired Croatian General Ante Gotovina was arrested in the Spanish Canary Islands late on Wednesday (7 December), UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte announced in Belgrade on Thursday. He is being transferred to The Hague tribunal later Thursday, she said.

NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, speaking in Brussels moments after the announcement, hailed the arrest. "The arrest of Gotovina is good news for the world. It is good news for bringing people to justice who are not yet convicted but who are accused of very serious crimes, the most serious crimes. That's good news, and I think indeed it is also good news for Croatia."

Gotovina was one of the three most wanted war crimes fugitives from the Balkan conflicts in the 1990s, along with former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic. He went into hiding in June 2001, shortly after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted him over his alleged involvement in atrocities committed against Krajina Serbs towards the end of the 1991-1995 conflict in Croatia.

Croatia launched a military offensive, codenamed Operation Storm, on 4 August 1995 to regain control over the Krajina region, which was seized by Serb separatists in 1991. Throughout the several-day operation and follow-up actions that lasted through 15 November 1995, Gotovina was commander of the Split Operative Zone of the Croatian Army. As such, he exercised de jure and de facto command and control over all Croatian forces deployed as part of Operation Storm in the southern portion of the Krajina region, UN prosecutors alleged in an amended indictment against Gotovina, made public in March 2004.

The indictment charges him with four counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of violations of the laws or customs of war for persecutions, murders, plunder of property, wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, deportation and other inhumane acts allegedly committed during the operation. The ICTY holds Gotovina individually responsible for those crimes, including the unlawful killings of at least 150 Krajina Serbs. Up to 200,000 Krajina Serbs were reportedly displaced as a result of the Croatian Army offensive and follow-up actions.

According to UN prosecutors, Gotovina -- acting individually or in concert with others, including Ivan Cermak, Mladen Markac and former Croatian president Franjo Tudjman -- participated in a joint criminal enterprise, whose common purpose was the forcible and permanent removal of the Serb population from the Krajina region. As part of that enterprise, he "planned, instigated, ordered, committed, or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation, or execution" of the alleged crimes. The prosecutors also allege that while he knew, or had reason to know, that his subordinates were about to commit the atrocities listed in the indictment, or had done so, Gotovina failed to take the necessary measures to prevent those acts from taking place or to punish their perpetrators. Furthermore, he failed to fulfil his duty to restore and ensure public order and safety in the region, including its capital Knin and surrounding municipalities.

Gotovina was born on 12 October 1955, on the Croatian island of Pasman within the Zadar municipality. A professional soldier and a former French Legionnaire with the rank of Chief Corporal, he returned to Croatia in June 1991 to join the National Guard Corps as chief of operations and training of its 1st Brigade. From February to April 1992, Gotovina was deputy commander of the Special Unit of the Croatian Army Main Staff, afterwards taking on a six-month assignment with the Croatian Defence Council. In October 1992, he was appointed Commander of the Split Operative Zone of the Croatian Army, which was later re-named the Split Military District, and held that post until March 1996. Meanwhile, he was promoted from brigadier to the rank of major general and then to the rank of colonel general.

In March 1996, Tudjman, who was Croatia's president at the time, appointed Gotovina chief of the Croatian Army Inspectorate. Stipe Mesic, who won the Croatian presidential election in February 2000, dismissed Gotovina from the military on 29 September of that year.

In a report to the UN Security Council on 23 November 2004, del Ponte said the ex-general had disappeared in June 2001, after Croatian authorities informed him that there was a sealed indictment against him.

Following his disappearance, Gotovina's whereabouts became a subject of speculation and controversy. Pressing Zagreb to arrest and hand over the fugitive to the ICTY, del Ponte insisted he had been sighted in Croatia on numerous occasions. She also alleged that "a well-organised support network, including within state structures", was helping him evade justice.

Croatian officials, who on different occasions publicly called on Gotovina to surrender to the tribunal, maintained that he had fled the country, but pledged that he would be arrested if found.

Media reports in February 2004 suggested that Gotovina had been living openly in southeastern France. Following his six-year service with the French Foreign Legion, he had obtained French citizenship in 1979. After that, he was said to have lived for some time in the towns of Nice and Aix-en-Provence in southern France and to have travelled extensively to places in South America and elsewhere.

"He enjoys the protection of the mafia, even of local powerful people. He can live without having to hide; he can even travel out of the country without any major problems," the French daily Le Monde wrote, citing an October 2003 report by the French intelligence agency DST. However, the daily also noted that earlier reports suggesting the fugitive was in Corsica, Marseille or elsewhere in France had come to nought.

On 11 October 2004, the EU adopted a regulation freezing "all funds and economic resources belonging to, or owned or held by" the ICTY's three most wanted indictees -- Karadzic, Mladic and Gotovina.