Informer paid up to 5 mln dollars by US for Gotovina arrest

ZAGREB, Dec 6 2006

The United States has paid an up to five million dollar reward to an informer who helped track a fugitive Croatian general wanted for war crimes, a report said Wednesday.

The person provided information on the hiding place of the retired general, Ante Gotovina, who was captured on a Spanish island a year ago after four years on the run, the Globus weekly said, quoting diplomatic sources.

Following his detention, Gotovina was immediately transferred to The Hague to face trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The bounty, offered for information on the whereabouts of Gotovina and all other war crimes fugitives, is part of the US State Department's "Rewards for Justice" program.

Globis said the diplomatic security service in the State Department had said it could not comment on the report.

The US rewards program is still offering five million dollars (3.8 million euros) for information leading to the arrest of the six remaining fugitives of the UN war crimes court, notably former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic.

According to the weekly, the person to whom the reward was paid was thought to be a Croat living in Australia who was with Gotovina when he was arrested while dining at a luxury hotel on the Spanish island of Tenerife.

Gotovina, 51, has been charged by the ICTY over a military operation to recapture the key rebel Serb-held region in 1995. He is still seen as a national hero by many in Croatia.

The operation, code-named Storm, practically ended Croatia's 1991-1995 war of independence from the former Yugoslavia.

During the operation, which Gotovina commanded, up to 200,000 Serb civilians fled to neighboring Bosnia and Serbia and at least 150 were killed by his troops, according the UN court's indictment.