The defence estimates that both the indictments and the report in which the prosecution presented the manner in which it would prove general Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak, and Mladen Markac's reponsibility for the crimes committed during Operation Storm "break international law and UN resolutions by equating the status of an internationally recognized state and a self-proclaimed entity."

In the documents, the prosecutors give a distorted historical context which stands in complete opposition to the one that they themselves described in the case against the former leader of the so-called Republika Srpska Milan Martic, write Miroslav Separovic and Goran Mikulicic.

The defence attorneys elaborate on this point in detail, saying that the prosecutors in that case claimed that the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia guaranteed all rights to Serbs, that they seceded unlawfully, that the Yugoslav Army took their side, that they demonized Croats by, for instance, calling them "ustase," that they sabotaged international efforts for a peaceful solution.

"The accused is utterly willing to accept those claims by the prosecutors as accurate and consistent," says the defence.

In the Storm indictment, the prosecutors put events in the opposite historical context.

Referring to the unclear definition of the forming of the so-called Republika Srpska, both the prosecution's historical context and their report before the hearing in the case "Gotovina, Cermak and Markac," the defence explains in detail that this was a case of occupied Croatian territory and that Serbia used the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in the aggression, as well as that the self-proclaimed entities were planning to secede in order to become part of Serbia and Montenegro and that all campaigns, including Operation Storm, were done lawfully and legitimately.

In their report, the prosecutors presented Storm as an ethnic cleansing operation in which illegal attacks on civilian targets began occurring from the first moments of the campaign.

In the course of freeing the occupied territories of the Republic of Croatia, the Croatian armed forces operated on behalf of and authorized by a sovereign state with international subjectivity. By freeing the territory of the Republic of Croatia, in which an unconstitutional entity without democratic legitimacy and international subjectivity was formed, the Croatian armed forces suppressed an armed rebellion and removed the consequences of a military aggression from the outside, the defence states.

This was the right of the Republic of Croatia, in keeping with the Constitution and international law, to take military action in the moment it assessed that the overall geopolitical circumstances were the most favourable, states the defence.

The defence also writes that Storm was started after all other options for achieving a peaceful solution had been exhausted and after the utter inefficiency of the international community had become apparent in a series of issues, from the disarming of the Serbian forces and protection of civilian population from their attacks, the preventing of the ethnic cleansing of the Croatian population which had been conducted fully, to making it impossible for any Croatian refugees to return.

Serbs did not flee from bombing, but their mass exodus had been planned by their leaders and implemented through propaganda references to "ustase" and genocide, says the defence.

Croatia was aware of the plans on organized departure and did not prevent them, but ensured routes in order to reduce any possible casualties, the defence attorneys say.

The defence thinks that the prosecution's claim about the existence of a joint criminal undertaking is based on unreliable evidence, taken out of context, citing as an example the sentence of the late president Franjo Tudjman about attacks on Serbs for the purpose of their "virtual disappearance" and they say that this sentence is continued with a reference to the capitulation of Serbian forces, which clearly indicates that this was the case of a planned military defeat of the Serbian forces.

They also assess that the prosecutors have not proven the existence of an armed conflict at the time Operation Storm took place.