"Milan Martic deserved the punishment he got and that punishment is equal to life imprisonment, and maybe he could have been given a longer term," Mesic told reporters at an event at the National and University Library, when asked to comment on the ICTY verdict.
Asked what impact Martic's verdict could have on the trial of three Croatian generals awaiting trial before the ICTY, Mesic said he believed the verdict would benefit them because it referred to events that "happened earlier, to all that Martic, Babic, Milosevic, General Kadijevic and practically the entire Serbian leadership did at the time".
Martic was found to have participated in a joint criminal enterprise led by former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and in a campaign of ethnic cleansing directed at the non-Serb population in the formerly occupied Croatian areas.
He was also convicted of ordering rocket attacks on Zagreb in 1995, and of a number of other crimes against civilians.