"The Appeals Chamber will, therefore, gain little assistance from the Response," Markac's lawyers said in the latest filing.

On 12 September, the ICTY Prosecutor's Office responded to General Ante Gotovina's appeal by calling on the appeals chamber to dismiss as groundless the appeals Gotovina and Markac filed against a verdict sentencing them to 24 and 18 years' imprisonment for war crimes committed during the 1995 Operation Storm.

Markac's defence team said in the filing that the prosecution was misinterpreting the evidence and suggesting that at the Brijuni meeting, held ahead of Operation Storm, the first Croatian President Franjo Tudjman said that he saw the chance to "pay him (the Serbs) back".

Since a key issue in this appeal is whether it was agreed at the Brijuni meeting to target Serb civilians or not, this is a crucial representation on a fundamental issue. However it is a misrepresentation, Markac's defence said.

In the original exhibit cited by the Prosecution, it is crystal clear that Tudjman was not speaking about civilians but about the enemy army, the defence says.

"That the Prosecution is so ready to mis-state crucial evidence in a biased way should make the Appeals Chamber very cautious about accepting anything that the Prosecution asserts in its Response without first checking whether it corresponds to the evidence, findings or submissions," Markac's attorneys said.

The prosecution's general approach in its response is so systematically flawed and tendentious that it bears deconstructing at the outset, Markac's defence team said.

The defence team once again called on the Appeals Chamber to allow Markac's appeal against conviction.