FUGITIVE CROATIAN GENERAL INVOLVED IN ARMS

FUGITIVE CROATIAN GENERAL INVOLVED IN ARMS, DRUGS SMUGGLING: REPORT
Onasa/AFP - August 11, 2004

ZAGREB, Aug 11 (ONASA/AFP) - Fugitive Croatian general Ante Gotovina, who is wanted by UN court for crimes against ethnic Serbs during the 1991-1995 war, has been implicated in a ring of arms and drugs smugglers, a Croatian weekly reported Wednesday quoting a secret service report. Former counter-espionage chief Franjo Turek said Gotovina was involved with a group of Croatian officers, many like himself former members of the French Foreign Legion, allegedly trafficking in weapons and illegal drugs, the Globus weekly said. The group was linked to an attempt to smuggle some 600 kilos (1,320 pounds) of cocaine discovered by police in the coastal town of Rijeka in 1999, it said. Bosnian Croat General Ivan Andabak was charged with that crime but later released. The names of two other Croatian generals -- Ante Roso and Miljenko Filipovic -- were also mentioned in connection with the case. In his report to the government dated September 2003, Turek wrote that "Gotovina's role in the criminal activities of a group around Andabak" was being investigated. The report also said that secret services had Gotovina under surveillance since March 2001. Despite this, Gotovina went into hiding in July 2001 when the International Criminal Tribnal for former Yugoslavia (CTY) in The Hague made public his indictment. Gotovina is charged with killing at least 150 ethnic Serbs in a military operation in rebel-held parts of southern Croatia in 1995, which effectively ended the four-year war of secession from the former Yugoslavia. Following assertions by chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte that the country was not doing enough to arrest the fugitive, Turek resigned in March. The EU has been putting pressure on Croatia to arrest Gotovina but Zagreb insists he has fled the country.

Posted for Fair Use only.