Globus’s bombastic article on how Jure Kapitanović met with fugitive General Ante Gotovina in BiH to negotiate with him on his surrender to the Hague on behalf of Sanader’s government is the greatest deceit to happen in the past decade in Croatia. Not only did Jure Kapitanović not meet with Gotovina, but he also failed to pass on the message he was carrying for him from Sanader’s government. Kapitanović’s action brought benefit for neither the fugitive general nor the Republic of Croatia, but only for those intending to postpone the start of talks between Croatia and the European Union, tentatively set for 17 March. That includes the Hague Prosecution and Great Britain, and this is supported by Sweden, Finland, Holland and Denmark, who are seeking the negotiations be postponed till October due to Croatia’s unsatisfactory cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. Their main evidence is “Kapitanović’s action” which according to British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, proves clearly that Sanader’s government can easily come into contact with Gotovina, but that they prefer to negotiate with him instead of apprehending him and extraditing him to the Hague. If Sanader is sending his delegates to BiH to speak with Gotovina, then Straw believes he could just as easily send his police there to arrest him. Straw’s conclusion is logical, but based on incorrect assumptions due to the deceit by Kapitanović, the naiveté of Ivo Sanader and the poor functioning of the secret service. Add to that the ultimately suspicious media reports, which are always placed by the same authors in the same newspapers, all at a critical time for Croatia.

Jure Kapitanović, former head of flight control in Zagreb, then in Split, is the main actor of this entire tragic comedy, based on which the British secret service have again played out their dirty work in the Gotovina case. This story began last October, when Jure Kapitanović, then already working in Brussels for European flight control for six years, contact Miomir Žužul on one of his official visits to that city. He told Žužul in confidence that he could get into contact with General Gotovina and could get Gotovina to surrender to the Tribunal. Žužul told him that he would have to discuss the matter with the Premier, and after several days time, he directed him to contact Sanader. Kapitanović repeated his story for Sanader, and proposed a meeting with Ante Gotovina in BiH. As Nacional has learned from sources close to the government, Sanader told him what he has already said many times: that Gotovina will have to stand before the Tribunal, that the government will secure all legal and financial aid for his defense, and will negotiate with the Hague to have him released home within two months of his surrender, to allow him to await his trial at home. He also noted that he would try to negotiation with the Prosecutor’s Office for Gotovina to have a short period of time for preparation before appearing before the Hague Tribunal. In the best of intentions, though perhaps naively, trusting a man he was not certain of and grabbing at straws in the Gotovina case, Sanader made a big mistake in even meeting with Kapitanović, who has already been involved in many affairs.

Without any official government letter or legal grounds to conduct negotiations on behalf of the government, Kapitanović launched into action. However, having learned from previous experiences, Sanader took a measure of precaution and informed the Tribunal of this attempt to resolve the Gotovina case. In the next month, the ambassadors of several western states were also informed. From the very beginning, Kapitanović was pulling the wool over Sanader’s eyes, as he did not succeed in contacting the fugitive general, nor was he able to even approach the general’s family and friends. Considering that he needed to justify the promise he made to Sanader, he wrote four letters of identical content and sent them to those persons he believed to be tied to the general in any way. As Nacional has learned, Kapitanović first tried to become involved in the Ante Gotovina case in summer 2001.

One month after the indictment was raised against Gotovina, Jure Kapitanović appeared in Pakoštane, the hometown of the fugitive general. There the general’s friends and attorneys met, and Kapitanović presented himself as a man with reliable foreign witnesses, who would testify to have the indictment cast aside. He said that his main witness was the former commander of Unprofor, who was stationed in Split and was prepared to immediately go to the Hague and testify on behalf of Gotovina. The attorneys were delighted to hear of such friendly relations and said that they were ready to go immediately to meet with this foreign officer, who Kapitanović claimed was on summer vacation near Biograd. They immediately got into the car and headed off to speak with this “precious witness”. After driving around all day from one Dalmatian town to the next, in which Kapitanović several times changed direction suddenly, out of precaution he said, he told the attorneys that for security reasons, he could not contact the witness on that day. Returning them to Pakostan, he promised that they would go again the following day, and he guaranteed they would get into contact with the witness.

The next day, the entire situation repeated itself, however at about noon, after several conspiratory telephone calls by Kapitanović, the attorneys had had enough of driving about aimlessly in the summer seat and asked if they could directly contact the witness to set up a meeting. Kapitanović did not permit this, warning of the security measures and protection of that witness. After that, Gotovina’s attorneys asked to be taken home, and he promised them that in the coming days, he would set up a meeting. Three and a half years have passed since, and Kapitanović has not appeared close to Gotovina’s attorneys or family, who consider him to be a fraud and a manipulator. At that time, they suspected that Kapitanović played out this entire scene of two days of driving in an attempt to find out from his attorney’s where their fugitive client was hiding.

After three and a half years, Kapitanović appeared again, and this time with a letter that he attempted to pass on to the general through various channels. In this letter, Kapitanović addresses Gotovina as his great friend, though he met him once or twice in his life. The letter, written 17 October 2004, is published below.

Dear friend,
To begin with, warm greetings from those friends we spent many years with, especially those across the ocean. I have been living abroad for the past six years, but of course, I have been following all the recent events. After a series of very important meetings, last week, I was asked to pass on a message to you. When I was preparing for my trip back to Croatia, I received a message to contact them before leaving. I met with our men yesterday, and they told me that the message arrived from your attorneys via Pukanic. Firstly, let me say that I respect every one of your decisions, but I am obligated to tell you what is going on in the sidelines. I don’t need to tell you that your case is political and the political mood is important for it to be resolved. I want to warn you that any connections with the President of the Republic is counterproductive with the US and UK. They will never forgive his position on the war in Iraq. They are bitter that he continues to bring up the UN resolution and, they tell us openly, ‘Weren’t you under an embargo and didn’t you arm your country despite the UN resolution, didn’t you attack a UN-UNPA protected zone without any consequences?’ The US and UK are now inseparable.
I don’t know if anyone has passed on to you what our friends have written what you should do, that paper was written ten days before the beginning of your calvary and describes in detail what you should do. It begins that you should:
Hire a strong American law firm, which has access to all the American politicians.
This is still true today, and in their opinion even more important now. The government would hire this law firm, and that firm would work out your conditions with the Americans and Brits.
I cannot give you all the details, but I assure you it is their opinion that you can receive a guarantee to await your trial at home. Your stay in the investigative phase would be 60 days, with special status, not as a classical prisoner, free to walk around, do physical exercise, etc.
All expenses would be born by the Croatian Government, full support from our friends from Ivan’s country, their head guy had a meeting with our guys last week, and they are ready to help, as they are slowly realizing that you worked together.
Now it is most important that you give the green light for the government to hire an American law firm to begin negotiations with Prosper and the British, and then with the Tribunal. I would like to receive your response as soon as possible. I will be here again on Friday, for the next 10 days, and in that time we could meet, there is much more that I need to tell you and that you will be pleased to hear. Dear friend, this letter is not my personal position, these are the guarantees from our highest officials and foreign officials. Finally, I have to express my concern over your spiritual counsel, my dear friend, this is a political indictment which can only be resolved politically, and I am convinced that this is the only way.
So many people wish you well and have assured me that this will all end well.

Jure Kapetanović

This letter, which Kapitanović sent to four different addresses, never reached Gotovina according to Nacional’s information, as Gotovina since day one has been outside of Croatia and the entire region. However, after ten days, when Kapitanović returned to Croatia, he had still not received any response from Gotovina, and he began to panic. He had firmly promised the government that he would help get Gotovina to the Hague, and here he was without even a response. At that time he turned to the classic mean of resolving such a problem – fabrications, in order to cover up his failure. He allegedly informed the government that the message had reached the general and that he would meet with him in Bosnia Herzegovina, where he would be transferred to from an unknown location abroad. In order to show its openness and sincerity toward the international community, the government informed the Hague of this and certain embassies of western nations. Considering that he had not received a response from Gotovina, he again sent a new letter to the same four addresses, this time short and concise.

Dear friend, if you wish to speak with the responsible persons about your case, simply send an SMS message saying ‘Yes’ to the cell phone number XXXXXXXXXX. Jure Kapitanović.

Ten days later, after he failed to receive such a message on the listed cell phone number, Kapitanović continued to falsely inform the government that he had met with the fugitive general in a place near Čapljina, BiH, where they spoke at great length. According to Kapitanović’s claims, Gotovina was brought there from an unknown location abroad, however, in the end, his response was still negative. According to Kapitanović’s claims, the fugitive general refused to make any sort of a deal and decided instead to stand by his original position. The government also passed this information on to the embassies and the Hague. The government did this in full confidence, as to this point, no information was leaked. However, this time, they also informed the embassy of Great Britain, on Friday 28 January, which was their biggest mistake.

Already by 31 January, at the Council of Foreign Ministers in Brussels, Jack Straw, British Foreign Minister, attack the Croatian government and accused it of collaborating with and protecting Ante Gotovina, mentioning that the government was playing both sides as they knew that Gotovina was hiding out in BiH. As a result, Straw demanded a postponement of the negotiations between Croatia and the EU from 17 March to a new date in October. Britain’s request was supported by several countries similarly inclined, considering that if they could send a negotiator to BiH to meet with Gotovina, then they could also have arrested him. This would all be correct if Jure Kapitanović was telling the truth, and the situation has only been made more tense by the foreign agencies, who immediately began to construct a story, and the media, which publicly verified this action. Five days after the government informed the British of the peaceful attempt to bring Gotovina to the Hague, Globus released the bombastic story confirming the fabrications by Kapitanović and the British, by which this meeting was really held in BiH. When asked if this was correct, instead of telling the truth about his espionage-mediation failure, Kapitanović responded to the press saying, “I cannot comment. Try to understand my position.” And so he indirectly confirmed the phony news story and opened greater space for new fabrications and manipulations.

The Croatian government, like the entire nation, is again under pressure of the postponement of the negotiations, in order to allow Serbia to catch up to Croatia on its path to the European Union. It is indicative that Serbia, on the same day the Kapitanović affair surfaced, extradited General Lazarević to the Hague, following his medical examination, and the remaining two Hague fugitives, Lukić and Pavković. The government and Sanader came out looking naïve, and the domestic intelligence agencies completely failed, showing their amateurism. Though they will never admit it publicly, the government only confirmed the role of the British secret service and its diplomacy in all this disinformation and the media games, as well as certain Croatian media. However, despite this, they would not dare to say so publicly and to enter into any such confrontation with the British.

Only now can it be clear to Sanader and Mesić how wrong they were when they forced Franjo Turek, former head of POA, to resign. In his presentation one year ago, he clearly outlined and described all the ties between the domestic media and the British secret service and their deception of the Hague Tribunal and the domestic public on the whereabouts, movements and protection of Ante Gotovina.

Nacional’s reporters contacted Jure Kapitanović and asked him to explain the entire situation and his role in it. At first he promised to come to Zagreb on Friday, and then on the same day he called to say he would not be traveling because after reading the article in Slobodna Dalmacija, he fell in and required medical assistance. In the mean time, Nacional learned that Kapitanović indeed traveled to Croatia on the weekend, and the police and prosecutor will subject him to a polygraph test, asking him in detail about his alleged meeting with Ante Gotovina in BiH. Several weeks ago, Kapitanović also gave his statement to State Prosecutor Mladen Bajić and described for him in detail his alleged meeting with Gotovina. At that time he lied to the State Prosecutor, as he failed to mention that he had send Gotovina a letter asking for a meeting and that he had failed in his attempt.

The greatest question is why Kapitanović lied to Žužul, Sanader, Bajić and the whole public, whether he planned this entire deceit himself and what he had intended to gain by this? After all that he had done, the prosecutor’s office should raise charges against him, and the police should arrest him the next time he steps foot in Croatia. In this case, he is not protected by the Freedom of the Press Act, which states the journalists are not required to reveal their sources. If he refuses to tell the whole truth, perhaps he should be given some time to think in the Remitinec detention centre.