A UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has sentenced two former Croatian military leaders to a combined 42 years in prison for crimes against Serbs in 1995.
Ante Gotovina, a former army general, was given a 24-year sentence after been found guilty of killing, deporting and persecuting Serb civilians during the break up of Yugoslavia.
Mladen Markac was sentenced to 18 years. A third defendant, Ivan Cermak, was cleared of all accusations.
Up to 200,000 etnnic Serbs were driven from Croatia in 1995 and at least 150 were killed.
The judgment was shown live in central Zagreb, where hundreds gathered to watch it on a public screen. All three men had denied the charges.
Former French legionnaire Gotovina, 55, is regarded as a national hero in Croatia for his role during the war.
Prosecutors at the trial, which opened in March 2008, had sought a 27-year jail term for Gotovina.
They accused him of having sought the 'permanent removal of the ethnic Serb population from the Krajina region in Croatia' during the war for independence.
A lightning offensive led by Gotovina and dubbed Operation Storm led to the recapture of Croatia's Serb-held Krajina region in 1995, crushing one of the last pockets of Serb resistance in an area where the community had roots going back centuries.
All three ex-generals were accused of aiding and abetting the murders of Krajina Serb civilians and prisoners of war by 'shooting, burning and/or stabbing' them.
The prosecution said 324 Serbs were killed and 'close to 90,000 Serbs were forcibly displaced with the clear intention that they never return'.
