Ante Gotovina’s New ‘Best Mate’ – The Prime Minister

Regular meetings for lunch, watching football matches together and just generally hanging out, Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic seems to have found a best friend in recently released Croatian general Ante Gotovina.

Croatian daily Jutarnji list reports that the two have developed a close bond since Gotovina’s release back in November after he was acquitted on war crime charges after serving 7 years in a Hague Court. Last week the pair were spotted on one of their regular lunch meetings in the capital Zagreb, where they reportedly dined for ‘hours’. The pair often meet up for lunch and Milanovic says that it has nothing to do with politics.

“It was just an ordinary lunch with no political connotations,” Milanovic colleague reportedly told Jutarnji list, before adding “They meet once a month and I think they will continue to meet in future. It is a male friendship and nothing else.”

In June Milanovic reportedly visited Gotovina at his home in Pakostane, where the two, along with another friend of Gotovina, Defence Minister Ante Kotromanovic, watch Croatia play Scotland in a World Cup qualifier on the tv. In January Gotovina formed a tuna farming company called Pelagos net farma d.o.o, which will farm tuna between the small Dalmatian islands of Vrgad and Gir near Zadar. Gotovina’s company is allowed to farm up to 450 tons of tuna a year, according to the Zadar county concession.