Ante Gotovina

Ante Gotovina (born October 12, 1955) is a Croat professional soldier and currently a fugitive from the International War Crimes Tribunal.

Croat attitudes to Gotovina

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.

Related Topics:
Operation Storm - Rahim Ademi

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Many individuals and parties use hostility towards the ICTY to enhance their influence and clout.

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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.

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The newspapers in Croatia have also investigated into Gotovina's whereabouts, and the editor of Nacional Ivo Pukani? 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 provoqued a political upheaval and scandal in Croatia. Former Prime Minister, Ivica Ra?an (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. ?ime Lu?in, 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.

Related Topics:
Nacional - 2003 - Feral Tribune - 1981 - 1986 - 1991 - February 19 - 2005 - Jutarnji list - Ivica Ra?an - ?ime Lu?in

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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.

Related Topics:
French Foreign Legion - Gaullist - François Mitterrand - 1993 - 1995

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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.

Related Topics:
April 11 - 2001 - Zagreb

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