The defence counsel asked the Hague-based UN tribunal to drop the indictment against their clients asserting that the prosecution failed to prove any count of the indictment against the three generals, accused of war crimes against Serbs during and in the aftermath of the August 1995 Operation Storm when the Croatian army and police retook areas held by Serb rebels.
The defence teams said that there had been no joint criminal enterprise on which prosecutors also on Monday insisted.
Tieger said that the Croatian authorities led by the then President Franjo Tudjman forcibly removed Serbs from the said areas resorting to methods of shelling, devastation, plunder and intimidation.
Tudjman as well as his associates did not want Serbs in Croatia. For him, a multinational state is in its core instable, and Serbs were a threat, he said citing excerpts from the so-called presidential transcripts (made in the Office of the President Tudjman) and from statements given by the then U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith.
Prosecutor Edward Russo spoke about the segments of the indictment charging the defendants with indiscriminate shelling of the town of Knin, which was until the Operation Storm the stronghold of Serb insurgents, and of other towns held by rebels.
According to Russo, all the evidence indicates that attacks were directed against civilians rather than military targets which he said proved that the intention was to scare the Serb population and force them to flee.
He quoted some of the witnesses as having said that some 50 to 75 civilians were killed and 30 to 40 were injured in the shelling of Knin.