9 January 2005. Cryptome today asked "Striker," a/k/a "Tony Cascarino," via an email address (irishnews@donegal.net) listed at http://www.tonycascarino.com/ to respond to this report and that in the Sunday Herald. The response:
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 12:54:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Brian Mulcahy <irishnews@donegal.net>
To: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: Inquiry on Tony CascarinoThank you for bringing this to our attention and inviting us to respond.
"Tony Cascarino" categorically denies all the malicious allegations made in both the Croatian link to the Belfast heist article posted on your web site and also those which were published in the Sunday Herald.
The allegations are completely untrue. It is our belief they are politically motivated in an attempt to discredit Croatian General Ante Gotovina and certain others by falsely portraying them as criminals.
B.Mulcahy
C/5401/09/05
MI6 Cover-up Over Gotovina's True Whereabouts?
9 January 2005. M. writes:
In response to your posting:http://cryptome.org/croat-heist.htm
For those of you interested, "The Striker" also has his own website where he has published a book of memoirs about his participation in Croatia's defense against the Serbian aggression in 1991.
According to MI6, in between helping Gotovina escape, robbing banks, and firing rockets at MI6 headquarters, "The Striker" in his spare time writes books and maintains his own website.
Hilarious.
_____
This British MI6 disinformation campaign about Gotovina is becoming comical. Over the past three years, they have placed in the British press so many different locations for Gotovina that they could start a new show, "Where in the World Is Ante Gotovina?" For example, they have placed Gotovina in:
Toronto
Chicago
Colombia
Corsica
Belfast
Sicily
Israel
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Switzerland
London
AustriaOf course, when its politically necessary the Brits then claim he's in Croatia.
The most hillarious part of the story about "The Striker" robbing banks to finance Gotovina is that "The Striker" is hardly hiding underground. He has a website where he tells his version of events and describes how he participated in the defense of Croatia with, among others, Gotovina. Tony Cascarino (aka "The Striker") repeatedly denies the MI6's fiction.
http://www.cascarino.homestead.com/
Unable to locate Gotovina, MI6 seems to have instead decided to write a really bad spy movie and feed it to the always eager British press. Only the boys at MI6 seem intent on making themselves look more like Johnny English than James Bond.
8 January 2005. See related Neil Mackay report in the Sunday Herald (9 January 2005):
http://www.sundayherald.com/47026
7 January 2005. Thanks to VL.
You may find the following of interest. All can be verified on a simple Google search under 'gotovina ira' etc.
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Starts
Tongues are wagging in Belfast that one of the organisers and participants of the recent job at the Northern Bank, is a former Croatian soldier with strong IRA links known as ‘The Striker.’
The Irishman fought for Croatia in 1991 and is considered a hero by many Croats for his conduct and bravery during the war. He served in the Croatian National Guard and trained the HOS paramilitary forces. He has been named in the Croatian media as having organised the escape of his former commander General Ante Gotovina - currently The Hague’s third most wanted man and is believed to be harbouring him with the help of the Belfast IRA.
Gotovina, subject of a $5m reward, is suspected of ordering war crimes committed during a 1995 CIA-backed operation to reclaim Croatian territory from Rebel-Serbs and is being hunted by MI6. The EU recently issued a directive ordering the Croatian government to seize the retired general’s assets, which is being challenged by his legal team. Croatia's entry into the EU is dependent on his capture.
The former soldier is a grandson of an IRA Civil War Divisional Commander and has extensive contacts both within the Republican paramilitary leaderships and international organised crime.
In 1992, he was the right-hand man of Italian businessman Remo D‘amico, described as ‘The Boss’ of the Pescara underworld by the Italian media. Three years later D’amico was arrested by Italian police investigating arms trafficking and subsequently acquitted amongst much controversy. The investigators discovered explosive seized by police was of the same type used to kill two prominent anti-mafia judges in Sicily, one of whom was a close friend of Carla Del Ponte, the Hague’s chief prosecutor.
D’amico is understood to have introduced the Irishman to the infamous Valerio Viccei, mastermind of the 1987 Knightsbridge safe deposit robbery which netted an estimated £62m. Sentenced to 22 years, Viccei successfully transferred from Parkhurst to an Italian prison near Pescara and was released daily to work in a solicitor’s office. According to an associate of D’amico, Viccei described the Irishman as his ‘most proficient student.’ The Italian robber was later killed in a bloody shoot-out with police.
The Belfast Telegraph recently revealed that ‘The Striker’ was identified as one of the IRA’s key arms fixers in Croatia and it was reported that he thwarted a major arms shipment to the Loyalists. The Belfast Telegraph also stated ‘The Striker’s’ believed to have fired a Croatian RPG rocket at MI6 HQ in 2000 and is currently being investigated by Interpol. He has featured regularly in the Croatian press in connection with the missing general.
"Playing host to fugitive generals is indeed an expensive business," my source told me, "looks like he's back in town."
…………………………………………………………………………………………...................................
26/9/03 An Irishman was named by Croatian weekly Globus as the key man who organised and participated in General Ante Gotovina’s escape from Croatia, and linked him to international organised crime, particularly the Sicilian mafia, arms dealing and the IRA.
7/10/03 Irish Mirror stated that war crimes investigators believed the fugitive may be in Belfast under the Irishman’s protection.
15/01/2004 Irish Independent stated that the US government offered a $5m reward for information on Gotovina’s whereabouts after reports that he had fled from his hideout on mainland Europe and moved to Ireland, using a close friendship with "a grandson of an Irish civil war hero" to establish a base there.
18/01/04 Irish News of the World: “Gotovina’s lawyer last night said he was aware of the reports that the General was in Ireland, and believed they centred around the fact one of his closest allies in the Yugoslav war was an Irishman whose grandfather fought in the 1916 Easter Rising.”
August 2004 Globus:
http://www.globus.com.hr/Clanak.aspx?BrojID=73ClanakID=1537&Stranica=4#1906
“The Croatian counter intelligence (POA) has carefully studied the Globus article on Gotovina's connections to the Irishman Tony Cascarino and the Sicilian underground.
The net of Gotovina's associates / helpers spreads from Sicily to Ireland
A part of the report entitled "The analysis of certain press media reports on Gotovina", that was made by the Croatian counter intelligence (POA) in October 2003, mentions how POA continues to follow all information published in the media. The report also mentions that a special emphasis should be put not only on Gotovina's interview in the magazine "Nacional" but also on the Globus article from the 26th of September 2003 entitled "The Sicilian Mafia is hiding Gotovina", the article mentioned that a former British commando Tony Cascarino was the middleman between Gotovina and the Sicilian arms smugglers who helped Gotovina escape. POA noted that Cascarino was an international volunteer who joined the Croatian Army (HV) in August 1991 and in 1992 became the "right hand man" of Remo D'Amico, described as the new leader of the Italian crime milieu by the Italian media in 1995.The authors of the Globus article received the information from the Italian newspaper "Il Piccolo" and published by a journalist Pierluigi Sabatti a few days earlier, he claimed he'd received the information from the Italian intelligence sources. The same journalist issued a report in the newspaper "Il Piccolo" on the 30th of September 2003 that Gotovina was currently in Ireland."
27/09/2004 The Telegraph reported how the head of the Croatian intelligence service (POA), following a large scale MI6 spy operation in Croatia to capture Gotovina was replaced when he questioned how the fugitive general was a threat to British national security.
17/10/04 Sunday Times reported that an MI6 spy operation in Croatia, aimed at tracking down Gotovina, was halted when one of its surveillance vehicles was sabotaged in an arson attack. Diplomats have speculated, however, that MI6’s real interest in the former general springs more from his links to weapons consignments that were smuggled to the Real IRA. A grenade launcher from one shipment was used to attack MI6 London headquarters at Vauxhall Cross four years ago. “It was personal from MI6’s point of view,” said a senior British source.
22/10/2004 Gotovina’s defence team announced it would challenge any attempt by the Croatian government to freeze its client's assets, following an EU directive aimed at crushing his support network.
14/11/04 Belfast Telegraph reported that senior security services had informed them that the Irishman was one of the main arms dealers in Croatia for the IRA. That he was protecting Gotovina in Ireland with the help of the IRA in return for arms, and that he is known as ‘The Striker.’ He is believed to have personally fired a Croatian rocket at MI6 HQ in 2000.
http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=581882
20/12/2004 Northern Bank, Belfast is robbed.
22/12/2004 Gotovina’s lawyer announces that the general will
not surrender.
Ends.