The commander of the HVO military police, Valentin Coric, and other leaders of the former self-styled Croat Community of Herceg Bosna - Prime Minister Jadranko Prlic, Defence Minister Bruno Stojic, HVO generals Slobodan Praljak and Milivoj Petkovic, and the head of the commission for the exchange of prisoners of war, Berislav Pusic - are accused of crimes committed in a joint criminal enterprise, led by former Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, in order to ethnically cleanse Herceg Bosna, which they wanted to annex to Croatia.
Coric's lawyer Dijana Tomasegovic Tomic told the UN tribunal in The Hague in her closing argument that prosecutors viewed themselves as knights of international justice, adding that international justice meant the establishment of the truth and the respect for the rights of defendants.
The lawyer said that the prosecutors interpreted the same documents in different ways, depending on what suited them, and accused them of ignoring or fabricating some facts.
This is the behaviour of those who want victory at any expense and not of those who fight for international justice, she added.
The prosecutors have asked that Coric be found guilty and given 35-year imprisonment. The prosecutors demand prison sentences ranging from 25 to 40 years for the other defendants.