Hague: Croatia's top leaders, part of criminal enterprise

This was announced in a statement for the media late on Wednesday, after the Appeals Chamber announced the final verdicts against Prilic and five other wartime Bosnian Croat leaders.

Their guilty verdicts for the persecution of Muslims (Bosniaks) in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1993 until 1994 were confirmed, as well as the prison terms, ranging from ten to 25 years.

In the statement, the Prosecution said that the Appeals Chamber "confirmed that the six accused, together with then-senior leaders of the Republic of Croatia, were key participants in a joint criminal enterprise to ethnically cleanse Bosnian Muslims through the commission of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other war crimes."

The judgment also confirmed that members of this criminal enterprise "shared a common purpose to seize control over claimed territory in Bosnia-Herzegovina by forcibly displacing tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims to facilitate a unification of Croatian people in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina."

The ruling further upheld the Trial Chamber's findings that "key members of Croatia's then-leadership, including President Franjo Tudjman, Defense Minister Gojko Susak, and Janko Bobetko, a senior general in the Croatian Army, shared the criminal purpose to ethnically cleanse Bosnian Muslims and contributed to realizing that goal," the Prosecution said.

In the commentary, it added that the ruling "affirmed that there was an international armed conflict because Croatia exercised overall control over the (Bosnian Croat Defense Council) HVO, which committed widespread crimes as proven in this case."

"Croatia released Croatian Army officers to command HVO forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, provided...