The Hague, 10 December: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Saturday 10 December officially confirmed that Croatian General Ante Gotovina had arrived at the UN ...court's detention unit at Scheveningen and welcomed his arrest and transfer as a significant event for the Hague tribunal. The procedure following arrival includes an identity check, informing Gotovina of his rights and the charges against him, a brief medical examination, and the start of talks on legal representation, said Jim Landale, adding that Gotovina would be enabled to talk with attorneys after he informed ICTY representatives of his wishes concerning counsel.
London, 8 December: Slovene PM Janez Jansa is pleased that Croatian General Ante Gotovina was arrested in Spain. "What we have always claimed in our support for Croatia, namely that Gotovina is not ...in Croatia, has proven to be true," Jansa said on Thursday 8 December.
According to the unnamed police source, the Interior Ministry has been for a longer period of time trying to confiscate the fire weapons that Gotovina has a permit to keep. Allegedly this is about ...three gun licences for four pistols and three guns. According to the same source, Gotovina's wife declined to hand over the weapons to the police who came to her apartment two days ago. Dunja Zloic Gotovina was called for a police interview yesterday. Mrs Zloic Gotovina allegedly came to the police station yesterday but refused to hand in the weapons, so the police request a court to issue a search order.
Zagreb, 30 April: Former Croatian prime minister Ivica Racan "did not dare to arrest General Ante Gotovina as he feared a state coup", chairwoman Vesna Pusic of the Croatian People's Party, which was ...a coalition partner of the Racan government, has told Zagreb-based daily Jutarnji list.
Belisce, 12 March: Branimir Glavas, a Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) member of parliament and chairman of the Osijek County Assembly, said this evening in Belisce that he was confident that if the ...country's accession talks with the EU do not begin on 17 March, there were other reasons for this apart from Gen Ante Gotovina. "Gen Gotovina is not a criminal of any sort but rather a Homeland War hero and he deserves the gratitude of the Croatian people. They need to have a deep-seated conviction that all these monstrous attacks on him will be refuted in court, be it domestic or international, because Croatia wants to be part of modern Europe," Glavas said.
"Five Croatian generals, who had a more important role in Croatia's defence than Ante Gotovina, surrendered to the tribunal voluntarily. I see no reason why we would protect one person. The only ...answer is that Gotovina is not in Croatia," Stjepan Mesic said.
The committee's chairman, Josip Perisa, who held a news conference after a committee session in Zagreb on Monday, also refuted an article run in Jutarnji list according to which HVIDRA chief Josip ...Djakic had told the newspaper that Gen Ante Gotovina should prove his innocence before the Hague tribunal. According to Perisa, Djakic sent a denial of that article to Monday's issue of Slobodna Dalmacija and he will hold a news conference tomorrow to present his position on the entire matter. The duty of HVIDRA is to protect all of its members, including Gen Gotovina. HVIDRA does not support the Croatian government in a bid to locate and arrest the general and transfer him to The Hague, Perisa said.
Zagreb, 17 February: President Stjepan Mesic says in an interview with Friday's 18 February Vjesnik he is confident Croatia will start European Union negotiations on 17 March as scheduled, and that ..."we have more and more evidence that General Ante Gotovina is not in Croatia". Asked what could be done in the next 30 days, Mesic said that "firstly, we must provide evidence that we've done everything to prosecute those who harboured fugitives in the past, and secondly, we must provide evidence that we've done everything to locate General Gotovina if he is in Croatia, or any evidence that he is outside Croatia". Mesic says the consequences of not joining the EU within the planned deadlines would be big for Croatia because the use of structural funds given to new members upon admission would be prolonged, the economic revival and overall development would be stopped, and Croatia would be deprived of new capital and technology.
Among the many cases, the one that is most interesting to us is last year's discovery made by a "Sfor NATO-led Stabilization Force intelligence officer" who had noticed Croatian Gen Ante Gotovina, ...whom the Hague tribunal had indicted, while swimming at the beach at Brela. He then probably sent this report to the competent persons and MI6 then routinely sent this to the chief Hague prosecutor, who in the end included this information in her official report on Croatia's (non)cooperation with the Hague tribunal. When it later turned out that an Italian tourist who looked similar - but only from afar - to Gotovina had visited Brela, and not Gotovina himself, he experienced his "five minutes of fame" in the Croatian media and it was clear that this was done in an unprofessional manner. In order to at least partially cover this up, Hague Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and British Europe Minister Denis MacShane then several times again reiterated that Gotovina was allegedly seen in Brela. However, in order not to threaten the minimum of their personal credibility, they quickly gave up on these theses. Gen Gotovina is probably not in Hercegovina, he said, but he immediately added that Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were not in Bosnia-Hercegovina either. One gets the impression that by refuting his first information on Gotovina's possible location David Leakey had, in a certain way, wanted to amnesty Eufor - which he heads - for its inefficiency in connection with the search for Karadzic and Mladic. Now they probably will not even look for them since, he claims, neither of the two is in Bosnia-Hercegovina. This is nevertheless a significant move in comparison with Sfor's behaviour, which - according to the local press - had avoided Karadzic in a gentleman-like manner whenever it would come across one of his control points by chance.
Zagreb, 21 December: Fugitive Croatian Army General Ante Gotovina has no intention of surrendering to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, but is still ...willing to appear in Zagreb for an interview with tribunal investigators, his lawyer says. Luka Misetic said it was not necessary for Gotovina to appear in The Hague by 17 March 2005 in order for Croatia's cooperation with the tribunal to be assessed as satisfactory, but that Croatia "should do all it can to meet the international obligations it has assumed". He recalled that Croatia had been told before that without Gotovina in The Hague it would not obtain a positive opinion on its membership application, a candidate status, and a date for the start of entry talks, and that in the end Croatia got it all.
