[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive] began the trial [press release] of Croatian general Ante Gotovina [ICTY case backgrounder, PDF; BBC profile] and two other militant commanders Tuesday. Gotovina, Ivan Cermak, and Mladen Markac, are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for their alleged involvement in the 1995 Operation Storm [BBC report], in which Croatian forces allegedly murdered 150 Serbs in Krajina and expelled thousands of Serbian civilians from Krajina, Croatia. If convicted, the three face a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

Gotovina [JURIST news archive], who was indicted [PDF text] in 2001, was the third most-wanted ICTY war crimes suspect until his arrest [JURIST report] in Spain's Canary Islands in 2005. AP has more.