Ante Gotovina Ante Gotovina ( born 12 October 1955 ) is a Croatian retired lieutenant general and former French senior corporal who served in the Croatian War for Independence . In 2001 , the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted him on a number of war crimes and crimes against humanity charges for crimes committed in 1995 during and in the aftermath of Operation Storm . After spending four years in hiding , he was captured in the Canary Islands in December 2005 . In April 2011 , Gotovina was found guilty on eight of the nine counts of the indictment and sentenced to 24 years of imprisonment . On 16 November 2012 , he was found not guilty on all charges by the appeals panel at the ICTY , and immediately set free . A Croatian government plane flew the general home , where he received a hero ' s welcome across all of Croatia . Early life . Ante Gotovina was born in Tkon on the island of Pašman . His father Milan tried to move with his mother to Italy , but was caught by the Yugoslav border police . His mother was released while his father spent time in prison . When Gotovina was nearly four his mother was killed saving him from an explosion from a construction site . After that his father went to work in Zagreb , while Gotovina and his siblings went to his maternal grandfather Šime in Pakoštane . Around Easter of 1971 , Gotovina and his friend Srećko tried to escape by sailing away . Soon they returned to Pakoštane after a storm caused troubles at sea . Gotovina hid his attempt to escape from his family and continued to attend school for electrical engineering in Zadar . French Foreign Legion and after . At the age of sixteen , Gotovina left home to become a sailor . In 1973 , before turning eighteen , he joined the French Foreign Legion under the pseudonym of Andrija Grabovac and became a member of the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment ( 2e REP ) after qualifying at the Training School in Pau before joining the elite " Commandos de Recherche et d ' Action en Profondeur " ( CRAP ) now renamed as " Parachute Commando Group " ( GCP ) . It was there he met Dominique Erulin , brother of the Colonel Philippe Erulin , who would be his friend and partner in future missions . In the next few years , he participated in Foreign Legion operations in Djibouti , the Battle of Kolwezi in Zaire , and missions in the Ivory Coast , becoming Colonel Erulin ' s driver . After five years of service , he left the Legion with the rank of " caporal - chef " ; he obtained French citizenship in 1979 . He subsequently worked for a variety of French private security companies during the 1980s , among them KO International Company , a filial of VHP Security , known as a cover for the " Service d ' Action Civique " ( SAC ) , and was at this time responsible for the security of far - right politician Jean - Marie Le Pen . In 1981 , together with Dominique Erulin , he helped editor Jean - Pierre Mouchard ( a close friend of Jean - Marie Le Pen ) organize a commando operation to free his press in La Seyne - sur - Mer , occupied by CGT trade - union strikers . According to French police records , he became involved in criminal activities , which led to arrest warrants being issued for robbery and extortion ; it has been reported that he served at least one two - year prison sentence , though this has been denied by his attorneys . Dominique Erulin claims the accusations were a political ploy made up by the left - wing factions allied with President François Mitterrand . Towards the end of the decade he moved to South America , where he provided training to a number of right - wing paramilitary organizations , notably in Argentina and Guatemala . He met his future wife , Ximena Dalel , in Colombia and had a daughter . Arrested during a trip to France ( Paris ) , he was sentenced in 1986 to five years of prison by Paris ' " Cour d ' assise " . He was freed the next year , " in circumstances showing that he was benefiting from very particular protections " . However , Gotovina ' s lawyers have submitted a brief to the International War Crimes Tribunal alleging that Gotovina was in fact framed by a criminal police group loyal to François Mitterrand , a group which was convicted of official misconduct by French courts in 2005 . Croatian War of Independence . Gotovina returned to Croatia in 1991 when the Croatian War of Independence was beginning , and enlisted in the Croatian National Guard ( ZNG ) , the first organized military body of what would become the Croatian Army . He was an efficient commander and had the advantage – shared by relatively few other Croatian soldiers – of combat experience . He fought in western Slavonia : in Novska and Nova Gradiška , attached to the 1st Guards Brigade . He soon caught the attention of his superiors , and when the Croatian Army was established as such in 1992 , Gotovina was promoted to Colonel . As a colonel he was , along with Janko Bobetko and Anto Roso one of the main organizers of Operation Maslenica , which restored Croatia ' s territorial continuity in Dalmatia . By 1994 he had risen to the rank of major - general and , as a " general - pukovnik " and commanding officer of the Split military district he organized key military operations : the defense of Livno and Tomislavgrad from the troops of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladić , and the ten - month war of attrition which broke the Serb defenses in the Plain of Livno , the Dinara Ridge and the Šator mountain . He led the conquest of Glamoč and Bosansko Grahovo ( Operation Summer ' 95 ) , which enabled him to close from the east the encirclement of Knin , the " capital " of the self - proclaimed " Republic of the Serb Krajina " ( RSK ) . This ensured conditions for the rapid success of Operation " Oluja " ( " Storm " ) of 4 – 6 August 1995 , during which forces under his command captured Knin . Gotovina was then immediately put in charge of the combined forces of the Croatian Army ( " Hrvatska Vojska " or HV ) and the Croatian Defense Council in Bosnia ( " Hrvatsko Vijeće Obrane " or HVO ) in Operation Mistral , which defeated the army of the Bosnian Serbs and led the Croatian army , together with the Army of Bosnia - Herzegovina , within 23 kilometres of Banja Luka and was only stopped under American pressure . His success is why he is seen as a hero by many Croats . Post - war period . In 1996 , he became the chief of the Army Inspectorate . In September 2000 , Gotovina was a signatory to the Twelve Generals ' Letter in which the government of Ivica Račan was criticised . Because of this he was forcibly retired by the Croatian president , Stjepan Mesić , with an explanation that military officers shouldn ' t write political letters if not approved by the supreme commander and the president , respectively . War crimes indictment . Flight . In July 2001 , the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ( ICTY ) issued sealed indictments to the Croatian government seeking the arrest of Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač for war crimes . Gotovina was indicted together with Markač , a former commander of the special police of Croatia ' s interior ministry , and Ivan Čermak , assistant defense minister from 1991 to 1993 . The three were accused of aiding and abetting the murders of 324 Krajina Serb civilians and prisoners of war by " shooting , burning and / or stabbing " them and forcibly displacing almost 90 , 000 Serb civilians . Gotovina was charged with five counts of crimes against humanity ( persecutions , deportation , inhumane acts , murder ) and four counts of violations of the laws or customs of war ( plunder , wanton destruction , murder , cruel treatment ) . He denied all charges . For four years , 2001 – 2005 , Gotovina remained at large despite intense pressure from the United States and the European Union for his surrender . Foreign countries sought to track down Gotovina , and an Interpol warrant was issued for his arrest . The United States announced a $ 5 million ( €4 . 2 million ) reward for his capture . It was reported that the British Secret Intelligence Service ( MI6 ) had sought to find Gotovina but that it had been thwarted after its intelligence officers were exposed in the Croatian media , allegedly at the behest of Gotovina ' s allies in one of Croatia ' many intelligence services , the POA ( " Protuobavještajna agencija " or " Counter - Intelligence Agency " ) . The resulting scandal led to the sacking and replacement of POA head Franjo Turek . Several EU member states , including the United Kingdom and the Netherlands made the surrender of Gotovina a precondition for Croatia ' s accession to the European Union . This stance was criticised by the Croatian government , which claimed that it did not know where Gotovina was , that he was probably outside the country and that it was doing all it could to bring him to justice . Accession negotiations with the EU , scheduled to start on 17 March 2005 , were postponed pending a resolution of the issue . In September 2005 , ICTY ' s chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte claimed she had information that he was hiding in a Franciscan monastery in Croatia or in Bosnian Croat territory . She went to the Vatican to ask for help in locating him , but told The Daily Telegraph that Vatican foreign minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo had refused to help , telling her that the Vatican was not a state and thus had " no international obligations " . Her comments infuriated the Church in Croatia as well as the Vatican , whose spokesman Joaquin Navarro - Valls said the archbishop asked Del Ponte what evidence she had to her claims , but she didn ' t provide any . Del Ponte was later criticized for making self - contradictory statements about Gotovina ' s whereabouts in September 2005 . Croatia ' s bid for accession was finally accepted in October 2005 as part of a deal with Austria and some other countries , which gained Croatia ' s admission in exchange for dropping its opposition to Turkey ' s candidacy . The ICTY announced at the same time that Croatia was then " cooperating fully " with the tribunal , but did not provide further details . Reactions . Many Croatians continued to regard Gotovina as a war hero and rejected the assertion that he was guilty of crimes . Both left and right - wing parties in Croatia have been accused of using Gotovina as a means of drumming up political support . General Rahim Ademi ' s voluntary surrender to the ICTY raised the question in Croatia of why Gotovina did not follow suit . During his flight , Gotovina became a prominent icon of Croatian popular culture . Marko Perković and Miroslav Škoro , two popular Croatian musicians known for their right - wing views , recorded songs with lyrics implicitly praising the general and his flight , and both songs became huge hits , especially among younger fans . In 2006 , the two most popular football teams in the country , Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split , played a game in which all proceeds went to help finance Croatian generals . Gotovina ' s popularity can also be explained by how his flight fits the ancient Croatian stereotype of an outlaw , especially the hajduk - a person who defies distant and tyrannical authorities , this time embodied in The Hague , Brussels and other Western capitals whose governments demanded his arrest . There is an outlaw - celebrating culture of hajduks in Dinaric regions like the Dalmatian hinterland and neighbouring Croat - inhabited western Herzegovina and , in general , in all of the Balkans . Other Croats , regardless of their regional background , political persuasion or even attitude to wartime atrocities , praised Gotovina ' s flight as an act of defiance towards the Croatian political establishment . In March 2005 , a survey conducted on behalf of the U . S . Embassy in Croatia reported that a majority of those surveyed thought it was not in Croatia ' s interest to extradite Gotovina . Unofficial polls by television programs also showed strong support , with most callers saying that they would prefer Gotovina remain at large even if it meant not joining the European Union . In 2001 the Croatian writer Nenad Ivanković wrote a biography of Ante Gotovina titled " Warrior - Adventurer and General ( A Biography ) " . The Croatian filmmaker Dejan Šorak wrote and directed " Dva igrača s klupe " , a black comedy released in 2005 whose plot is inspired by the events surrounding the ICTY indictment against Ante Gotovina . Capture and extradition . On 7 December 2005 , Gotovina was captured by Spanish police and special forces in the resort of Playa de las Américas on Tenerife in the Canary Islands . He was said to have been traveling on two fake Croatian passports using the names , Kristijan Horvat and Stjepan Seničić . His passport contained border stamps of several countries , including Argentina , Chile , Russia , China , Czech Republic and Tahiti . A sum of money amounting to €12 , 000 was discovered in his room . He was immediately flown to Madrid , where he was imprisoned in advance of a court hearing to extradite him to the ICTY prison at The Hague . Spanish police were later reported to have been tracking him for several days , apparently following a lead supplied by the Croatian intelligence service , who had been tapping his wife Dunja ' s phone . The involvement of Croatian authorities has been backed up by the Carla ' s List documentary , a part of which is available on YouTube . On 10 December 2005 , Gotovina was flown to The Hague , where he appeared before the ICTY on 12 December . He pleaded not guilty to the seven charges brought against him , for acting individually and / or through a joint criminal enterprise in persecutions , deportation and forced displacement and other inhumane acts for a total of four counts of crimes against humanity ; and murder , plunder of property and wanton destruction of settlements in three counts of violations of the laws or customs of war . According to his lawyer , Gotovina has declared that he is " not the man described in each and every count . " Reactions . After Gotovina ' s arrest in Spain , several rallies and protests took place in Croatian cities . On 11 December 2005 ( the first Sunday after his arrest ) , a rally organised by war veterans attracted between 40 , 000 and 70 , 000 Croatians in the city of Split to protest the arrest . Several retired generals attended the rally and expressed their support for Gotovina . On the same day , rallies were held in several other cities in Croatia , but with smaller attendance ( in Zagreb some 500 people gathered ) . Polls taken by the PULS Agency after Gotovina ' s arrest showed that almost two thirds of the Croatian public saw Gotovina ' s arrest as bad news , and found the accusations against the general baseless . Trial . At the end of 2006 Gotovina ' s case was joined with cases against Ivan Čermak and Mladen Markač as it relates to the same events ( Operation Storm ) . The Trial of Gotovina et al was expected to begin in May 2007 but was postponed indefinitely due to conflicts between lawyers on the defence bench . Gotovina ' s lawyers were Luka Misetic , an American attorney of Croatian descent , Greg Kehoe , the American lawyer who advised the prosecution in the Iraqi Special Tribunal case against Saddam Hussein , and Payam Akhavan , former Legal Advisor to the Prosecutor ' s Office of the ICTY . Following the 2006 death of Slobodan Milošević ( who was imprisoned in ICTY prison cell just next to that of Gotovina ) , Ante Gotovina signed a condolence note to his family ( together with Mladen Naletilić Tuta , Paško Ljubičić , Ivica Rajić and other Croat and Serb detainees , making the list 34 signatures long ) which was published in Belgrade ' s " Politika " and " Večernje novosti " newspapers . Gotovina ' s attorney stated he signed because of his Catholic faith which stresses forgiveness . The trial began on 11 March 2008 , and concluded in September 2010 with the delivery of closing arguments . Misetic said he expected a verdict in two to 10 months ' time , as has been the case with the tribunal ' s decisions to date . First - degree verdict . On 15 April 2011 , Gotovina was found guilty on 8 of the 9 counts of the indictment and sentenced to 24 years of imprisonment . He was convicted of " committing war crimes and crimes against humanity , including murder , deportation , persecution and inhuman acts " , and the Presiding Judge Alphons Orie cited several distressing witness testimonies in the decision . In the Gotovina Defence Final Trial Brief , a 315 page document , Gotovina ' s laywers rejected the accusation of mass expulsion of Serbian population as well as the accusation of unlawful shelling of civilian areas , saying that the " HV used artillery solely against military objectives in a highly professional operation consistent with well - established military doctrine . " In Croatia ' s capital Zagreb , thousands gathered to watch the sentence being given out live on large screens and loudly protested the decision . Croatian prime minister Jadranka Kosor stated that the idea of a " joint criminal enterprise " was " unacceptable " as many Croatians feel it was part of their war for independence . War veterans staged a march in the Croatian capital in protest . About 10 , 000 showed up to the march , chanting slogans against the Kosor - led government and the EU as protesters removed and ripped apart the European Union flag from a flagpole at the main square , replacing it with the Croatian flag . A poll conducted immediately after the verdict showed that 95 . 4 % of Croatians felt that the judgment against Gotovina was unjust , and 88 % still saw him as a hero . Never in Croatia ' s polling history had such a consensus been reached . Support for Croatia ' s accession to the European Union plummeted to 23 . 8 % . In June 2011 , Ante Gotovina was ranked the second most creditable person for the creation of the sovereign and democratic Croatia in a large poll conducted by Večernji list . On 16 November 2012 , he was found not guilty on all charges by the appeals panel at the ICTY . Appeal verdict . On 16 November 2012 , Ante Gotovina was found not guilty with a majority of three votes against two by the Appeals Panel of the ICTY presided over by Theodor Meron . The previous verdict had sentenced him to 24 years in prison , while Mladen Markač was sentenced to 18 years . Both of them were accused of being part of the " criminal enterprise " , but Meron concluded that " there was no such conspiracy . " The night before candle - lit vigil s were held across Croatia , including at Roman Catholic churches . Gotovina and Markač were supported by numerous Croatian veterans , and some marched from Zagreb ' s Mirogoj cemetery to the Zagreb Cathedral . Gotovina ' s acquittal provoked mixed international reaction . Croatian prime minister Zoran Milanović reacted positively , as did the Croatian president Ivo Josipović . Meanwhile , Serbia ' s president Tomislav Nikolić reacted negatively , as did Serbian government minister Rasim Ljajić and the Prime minister Ivica Dačić and much of the Serbian media . The Government of Serbia subsequently froze its relations with the ICTY . On the other hand , Veselin Šljivančanin congratulated the generals on their release , placing blame on political leaders and not generals during war . Reactions in Bosnia and Herzegovina were mixed : positive reactions came from the President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Živko Budimir , and the Croatian politician Dragan Čović , while President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik was negative . The Hungarian nationalist party Jobbik also welcomed Gotovina ' s and Markač ' s release . Carla del Ponte was shocked by the verdict . Ivan Šimonović , former Croatian minister of justice and current UN Assistant Secretary - General for human rights , said that the verdict would have an important role in interpretation of some regulations of the international criminal law . Serbian politician Vuk Jeremić , President of the UN General Assembly , severely criticized the ICTY on Twitter . and in response scheduled a UN GA session to discuss the work of the ad - hoc Tribunals setup by UN . After release . After their release , the Croatian government dispatched the governmental Bombardier Challenger 600 plane along with Minister of Defence Ante Kotromanović and Minister of Veterans Predrag Matić to return Gotovina and Markač to Croatia . In Zagreb they were greeted by the Prime Minister Zoran Milanović and the Speaker of Parliament Josip Leko . Around 100 , 000 jubilant people heard them speak at the Ban Jelačić Square , after which the Cardinal Josip Bozanić held a mass for them at the Zagreb Cathedral . The two generals were then received by the President at the Presidential Palace where Gotovina said that the " Homeland War is now clean , it belongs to our history , it is a basis on which we build our future . " The Minister of Veterans Predrag Matić stated that Gotovina and Markač are amongst the candidates for a new highest Croatian decoration . On 19 November 2012 , the Belgrade - based tabloid Kurir ran an interview on Monday with Ante Gotovina , who stated that Serbs displaced after Operation Storm " should return to Croatia " . Serbian president Tomislav Nikolić , as well as most of the unions of Croatian Serb refugees described that call as mocking to Serbian refugees and Operation Storm victims . On 23 November Gotovina become an honorary citizen of Split and the next day he become honorary citizen of Zadar . On 2 December he was named honorary citizen of Osijek along with Markač . On 26 November , the Serbian government asked the ICTY to transfer the evidence against both generals to them for their own investigation . However , several weeks later Serbian prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević admitted that a review of the judgement was not possible .