"Your Honour, not guilty," Gotovina said after Judge Carmel Agius read him each of the seven counts of the indictment charging him with war crimes against Serb civilians committed during and in the aftermath of a combined military and police offensive dubbed Operation Storm when Croatian forces crushed the Serb rebellion in central Croatia in August 1995.
Under the amended indictment of 24 February 2004, Gotovina is charged with individual and command responsibility for persecution, murder, deportation, forced displacement, destruction of populated areas, plunder of property and other inhumane acts against Serb civilians allegedly committed in the course of and after Operation Storm, in which Gotovina took part as the highest operational commander of the Croatian forces in Sector South.
The prosecution was represented by Alex Whiting, whereas Gotovina was represented by court-assigned counsel Geert-Jan Alexander Knoops of the Netherlands after his lawyers Luka Misetic and Marin Ivanovic failed to be accredited in time.
Misetic and Ivanovic followed the proceedings from the public gallery, together with Croatian Embassy official Luka Aleric, former Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) leader Drazen Budisa and numerous Croatian and foreign reporters.
Contrary to the tribunal's usual practice, the indictment was read out in full, and the judge himself read out a list of about 30 victims from an addendum to the indictment.
Since the indictment was issued more than four years ago and was sealed, and you were on the run, I think it should be read out in its entirety, Judge Agius said, adding that he had been informed that the accused had waived his right to have the whole bill of indictment read to him.
The reading of the list of victims from a dozen villages in the municipalities of Knin, Benkovac and Korenica is part of the UN mandate under which the ICTY should contribute to reconciliation among communities in the former Yugoslavia, and the families of the victims must know that they are not forgotten, the judge said.
In the introductory part of the hearing, when asked to identify himself and state his last residence, Gotovina said: "Tenerife, Spain".
At the end of the hearing both the defence and the prosecution were given time limits for the preparation of their cases.
Lawyers Misetic and Ivanovic were expected to be accredited with the ICTY Registry as defence counsel for Gotovina on Tuesday.
Misetic later told reporters that one of the first preliminary objections to be raised by the defence would be "the fake Brijuni transcript", which had been admitted as evidence.
Gotovina, 50, went into hiding in late June 2001 when ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte brought a sealed indictment against him to Zagreb. He was arrested on the Spanish island of Tenerife on 7 December 2005 and was transferred to the ICTY detention unit in the Hague district of Scheveningen on 10 December.