Ante Gotovina was born on the island of Paaman near Zadar (Croatia), on October 12, 1955. He was a member of the French Foreign Legion, under the name of Ivan Grabovac, beginning in the early 1970s. He was affected to the 2nd regiment of parachutist, based in Calvi, Corsica. In 1978, the 2nd regiment jumped on Kolzewi, in Zaire. Gotovina was the driver of Coronel Erulin. After five years, he left the Legion, and gained French nationality in 1979.

Gotovina then engaged himself in various security offices, among them KO international company, which is a filial of VHP Security. This firm is known as a cover for the Service d'action civique (SAC), specialists of shady actions for the gaullist movement. KO international also assured at this time Jean-Marie Le Pen's security.

In 1981, with his friend Dominique Erulin, he helped editor Jean-Pierre Mouchard, a close friend of Jean-Marie Le Pen. The two men organized a comando to free Jean-Pierre Mouchard's press in La Seyne sur Mer, occupied by CGT strikers.

Gotovina and Erulin then went to Latin America, where they assembled paramilitary formations, notably in Argentina and Guatemala. Both were fugitives, after having robbed in September 2001, a rich strongbox maker, Henri Salomon (probably for an amount of 2,000,000 francs). In Colombia, Gotovina met his future wife, Ximena, with whom he would have a daughter. He took another alias, Toni Moremante. Arrested when he comes back to France, he was condemned in 1986 to five years of prison. But he was freed next year, under obscure circumstances.

Alterning between France and South America, in October 30, 1989, he took as hostage Gerald Tourmetz, who payed 350,000 francs as ransom. In 1990, Ante Gotovina returned to his native land, Croatia. When the war in Croatia began in 1991, he became a commander in the Croatian Army. He advanced from Brigadier in 1992 to Major-General in 1994. He was the commanding officer of the Split military district between 1992 and 1996; including the 1995 Operation Storm. In 1996 he became the Chief of the Croatian Army Inspectorate, but was dismissed from the active service in 2000.

Gojko Susak, the Croatian Defense minister knew about Gotovina's shady past, but ignored it in order to benefit from his evident military and tactical skills. Meanwhile, Gotovina was still a member of the Paris-based Assistance Security Protection, and may have been in Paraguay and Argentina in 1990 and 1991.

Gotovina was charged for war crimes, however, fled and remains at large, allegedly out of reach of both Croatian authorities and the Interpol. The USA has placed a $2,800,000 bounty on his head.

On December 7, 2005, Gotovina was captured by Spanish police and special forces in the resort of Playa de las Americas on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. He was said to have been traveling on a fake Croatian passport in an assumed name, Kristijan Horvat. 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.

United Nazi thank for the given material of Rundagor (Croatia).

28.07.08