TWO weeks ago he was sunning himself in Mauritius. Last night Ante Gotovina, the former Croatian general arrested while dining in a luxury hotel in Tenerife, was languishing in jail, waiting for a flight to The Hague.

As Mr Gotovina prepared to face the International War Crimes Tribunal, which has indicted him over the murder of 150 Serbs, details emerged yesterday of his lavish jet-setting life on the run. Interpol and a host of secret services sought the top Croatian war crimes suspect in all corners of the world, but he was discovered exactly where a published biography placed him: in the Canaries.

He had travelled far and wide, though. One of his two fake passports revealed that he had visited Argentina, China, Chile, Russia, the Czech Republic, Tahiti and, as recently as November 25, Mauritius. He stayed at expensive hotels and was protected by a posse of armed bodyguards.

None of this came cheap. When he was seized by nine Spanish policemen on Wednesday, Mr Gotovina had a laptop computer and €12,000 (£8,100) in his hotel room in cash. He wore no disguise, merely masquerading under the rather transparent alias Kristian Horvat — meaning “Croat”.

He was caught as he was raising a glass in the Hotel Bitacora in the Playa de las Américas resort in Tenerife. Dressed casually in a white shirt and jeans, the former French Legionnaire at first pretended that the police had got the wrong man. Then he admitted his identity, was handcuffed from behind and went quietly. “To us he seemed like a tourist on holiday, then the police came in and arrested him, ” one hotel employee said.

The arrest, which triggered street protests by his supporters in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, is the culmination of a 21-month hunt by the specialist fugitive group of the Spanish police, after Croatian Intelligence had tipped them off last spring that he was staying in the Canary Islands.

Mr Gotovina had vanished in 2001, shortly after he was indicted for war crimes. At first his country made little effort to find him, but eventually Croat investigators managed to trace his mobile phone calls to his wife, lawyer and a close friend.

The net tightened after the arrest in Greece in August this year of a Croat businessman suspected of helping to finance his fugitive lifestyle. However, the trail was cold until police received a tip from Interpol in September that Mr Gotovina was staying in an hotel in the Canaries. When police arrived at the four-star Hotel Vital Suite in Gran Canaria, he had disappeared. But staff there gave police a copy of the false passport that Mr Gotovina had used to check-in. The photograph was blurred but it was clear enough for detectives to recognise their man.

Spanish detectives scoured luxury hotels on the four main Canary Islands. When Mr Gotovina checked in to the Hotel Bitacora last Saturday, staff passed a copy of his signature to the police. Víctor García Hidalgo, head of the Spanish National Police, flew in to direct his capture. Fearing that Mr Gotovina or his bodyguards would carry guns, police went in armed. In the event he surrendered without a fight.