"That information has reached us too, and we are checking it, like any other information of that kind. We still cannot give any statements because the State Prosecutor's Office, intelligence services and police are still checking all information," Mehun told Hina.
Justice Minister Vesna Skare Ozbolt said in an interview with today's Jutarnji List daily that "a foreign national, who has been identified and who really does resemble Gotovina, but is not him, visited Brela".
"That person spent several days in the area of Brela buying real estate. If Gotovina had really been there, the entire Croatia would have known it," the minister said.
Skare Ozbolt would not give Hina any additional comment on the matter.
Vecernji List daily of today reports on its front page about the discovery of "Gotovina's lookalike" and states that this was an Italian tourist resembling the runaway general.
The daily carried Mehun's statement that the information was being checked and quotes well informed sources as saying that the police were familiar with the identity of the Italian and were looking for him, but that he was not in Croatia.
The chief prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Carla del Ponte, recently said she was in possession of information about General Gotovina having been seen on a beach on the Croatian coast in August this year.
Del Ponte made the statement in Luxembourg last Monday after presenting to the Council of the European Union her assessment of cooperation between former Yugoslav countries and the tribunal.