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A former Croatian army general was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison Monday for masterminding the slayings of dozens of Serb civilians early in Croatia's 1991 war for independence.

Maj. Gen. Mirko Norac, 35, is the most senior Croatian army officer convicted for war crimes in a Croatian court.

The trial, which lasted nearly two years, was one of just a few domestic proceedings to prosecute Croat wartime atrocities. It tested the Croatian judiciary's capability and willingness to handle such a sensitive national issue.

The ruling immediately triggered protests from war veterans, who gathered in front of the district court in Rijeka in northwestern Croatia to insist that Norac and other Croat fighters were national heroes, not criminals.

Norac's subordinate, Tihomir Oreskovic, received a 15-year prison term Monday. Although Norac was the local commander at the time in the central city of Gospic, where the killings occurred, most witnesses claimed Oreskovic held de facto command of the area.

An ex-soldier, Stjepan Granic, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the same case, and another, Ivica Rozic, was acquitted of charges.

The maximum penalty was 20 years in prison.

The slaughter at Gospic is one of the dark episodes of Croatia's side of the war.

Norac and Oreskovic were accused of commanding the killings in the city 90 miles southwest of Zagreb in October 1991. At least 50 people, mainly Serb civilians, were dragged from homes, shelters and workplaces and executed in fields outside the city, Monday's ruling said.

The trial has forced Croats most of whom still insist that only Serbs committed war crimes to confront the atrocities of their compatriots.

The war erupted when country's Serbs, backed by the Yugoslav army, took up arms in mid-1991 to oppose the country's independence from Yugoslavia. Thousands of Croats were killed and expelled as rebels seized a third of the country. The war ended four years later when Zagreb recaptured those areas.

The defendants insisted they played no role in the killings and claimed they were merely defending Gospic from Serb assaults.

Croatia's pro-Western government, which took power three years ago, has cooperated with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, in its investigations of Croat wartime atrocities.

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