(BBC) The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has convicted two former Yugoslav Army officers accused of massacring civilians in Croatia in 1991.
A third man was acquitted of involvement in the deaths of at least 194 people who were sheltering at a hospital in Vukovar town.
All three defendants denied charges of murder, torture and persecution.
Some 1,000 of the town's residents died during the fighting in November 1991 and another 5,000 were taken prisoner.
The three men had been charged in connection with the deaths of 264 people who were taken from the hospital, but the court ruled that only 194 of them could be proved to have been killed.
Croats regard the siege of Vukovar by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav Army as a key event in the war for independence.
Mile Mrksic was sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to 20 years' imprisonment for murder and torture.
The court found that Mrksic had withdrawn Yugoslav troops guarding the prisoners "with the consequence that the territorial defence and paramilitary groups were able to murder the prisoners," AFP news agency reports.
Another officer, Veselin Sljivancanin , was sentenced to five years' jail on charges of torture, but was acquitted on charges of extermination.
The third defendant, Miroslav Radic , was acquitted.