Fill out this form to email this article to a friend
Top war crimes suspect arrested
Associated Press
Published December 9, 2005
MADRID - Croatia's top war crimes suspect - a retired general indicted in the killings of at least 150 Serbs - has been arrested at a luxury resort on Spain's Canary Islands after four years on the run, officials said Thursday.
Elite Spanish police seized Ante Gotovina as he dined Wednesday at the Hotel Bitacora on the island of Tenerife, Spain's Interior Ministry said. He had traveled to the island off Africa's Atlantic coast on a fake Croatian passport, the ministry said.
Gotovina, 50, was flown to Madrid on Thursday and ordered held overnight in a high-security prison north of Madrid, the Efe news agency said. He was to be turned over the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, today, reports said.
Gotovina, a retired Croatian army general, was indicted by the tribunal for the killings of at least 150 Serb rebels by troops under his command and for the expulsion of about 150,000 others during Croatia's 1991-95 war.
Croatia's failure to track down Gotovina - on the run since his 2001 indictment - had been a key obstacle to his country's bid to start membership talks with the European Union. Croatia insisted it was not sheltering Gotovina, and the EU decided in October to move ahead with membership talks. Gotovina was taken to Madrid's high court late Thursday, accompanied by a lawyer and a Croatian consular official.
"The arrest of Ante Gotovina is very good news," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said from Brussels. "For reconciliation in the region ... it is fundamentally important that all indictees are brought to justice."
His capture put pressure on Serbia to come up with two other top fugitives from the Balkan wars: the wartime Bosnian Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic and the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. The two are thought to be hiding in Serbia or in the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia. The two men were charged by the tribunal with orchestrating the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim boys and men from Srebrenica - Europe's worst carnage since World War II - and for laying a three-year siege to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte was preparing a report to the U.N. Security Council on Belgrade's cooperation with the tribunal.
[Last modified December 9, 2005, 01:20:12]
Share your thoughts on this story
|
News
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Print
Email story
Comment
Email editor
