  
| 
| ||||||||||||||
Croatian war suspect flown to Hague
RELATED
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSMADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Former Croatian general Ante Gotovina has been transferred to the Hague, where he will stand trial for war crimes in charges stemming from the Balkans conflict last decade. Gotovina was arrested Wednesday night in Spain's Canary Islands. He left Madrid on Saturday morning for the Netherlands, where the Hague is located. He was taken to the Detention Unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia -- the full name of the war crimes tribunal. The tribunal said Gotovina "is charged with persecutions, murder, plunder of property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, deportation and forced displacement, and other inhumane acts, which took place under his command and control, against the Serb population during and in the aftermath of the August 1995 Croatian military offensive known as Operation Storm." The tribunal said Storm "was intended to establish Croatian authority over the Krajina region of Croatia" where Serbs lived. "According to the indictment, another purpose of the operation was the forcible and permanent removal of the Serb population from that region. The indictment alleges that as commander of the Split Military District, Gotovina was the overall operations commander of Operation Storm in the southern portion of the Krajina region." The indictment "alleges that Croatian forces killed at least 150 Serbs in Krajina while subjecting large numbers of others to inhumane treatment, humiliation and degradation. Thousands of Serb dwellings were destroyed. and the local Serb population was subjected to plunder and persecution, according to the indictment. The fugitive status of Gotovina had presented obstacles for Croatia's efforts to gain membership in the European Union and NATO. The arrest is seen as a big step for Croatia in achieving those goals. There had been questions about Croatia's resolve in finding Gotovina, and the Croatian government issued a statement saying the arrest "represents an affirmation of the reliability of the assertions made by the Republic of Croatia that he was not within the reach of the Croatian authorities nor was he in Croatian territory," a reality that it says underscores the government's credibility. "No one can be above, or outside the law," the statement said, adding that law includes domestic law and "the Constitutional Law on the Cooperation with the ICTY, which was adopted by the Croatian Parliament back in April 1996." Referring to the Balkans conflicts, Croatia said, "All of us in Croatia have a vested interest in establishing the absolute truth. "The Homeland War was a defensive, just and legitimate one, as well as a war of liberation. Croatia was a victim of aggression and possessed the right to self-defense and the liberation of its occupied territories." Two other major war crimes fugitives from the Balkan conflicts of last decade are former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, his military chief. Carla del Ponte, the chief war crimes prosecutor at The Hague, said after Gotovina's arrest that "of course, I am expecting now" the arrests of "Mladic and Karadzic and the other fugitives." 
|
| ||||||||||||||
| © 2007 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map. |
 |
|
Pay service with live and archived video. 
