Norac has been in prison for more than 10 years, since March 2001. He was first convicted to 12 years' imprisonment for war crimes in the area of Gospic, and later to six years in prison for crimes in the Medak Pocket. When the second verdict became final, the Supreme Court imposed on him a single prison sentence of 15 years. While in prison, he graduated from a university, got married and became a father. President Ivo Josipovic, who is the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, in September 2010 stripped him of his rank of general, and he did the same in the case of Branimir Glavas and Vladimir Zagorec who have also been given final prison sentences.

Petrac, who before his trial had been on the run for more than a year, has been serving his seven and a half years prison sentence for the kidnapping of the son of retired Croatian general Vladimir Zagorec and for the extortion of businessman Miroslav Matkun of Novi Marof. Petrac's sentence expires in March 2013.

Petrac has been serving his term in a number of prisons. While in the Lepoglava penitentiary, contrary to prison rules, he enjoyed many privileges to which he was not entitled, due to which former warden Stjepan Loparic and his assistant Neven Putar were sentenced pending appeal to 20 and 14 months in prison respectively. Petrac testified in a trial in which retired general Vladimir Zagorec was sentenced to prison for taking USD 5 million in jewels from a Defence Ministry safe when leaving his post of assistant defence minister in 2000. Petrac was the first to make allegations about the jewel theft in the trial for the kidnapping of Zagorec's underage son.

Sulic was sentenced in 2007 to seven years in prison for defrauding the Croatiabus transport company of 15.5 million kuna, and the Supreme Court later reduced his sentence to five years. In April this year he was sentenced pending appeal to two years in prison for acquiring an apartment worth more than half a million kuna through fraudulent activities to the detriment of Croatiabus.

Norac, Petrac and Sulic will be released on parole after having served more than two-thirds of their sentences, and they will continue serving the rest of their sentences outside prison, abiding by certain conditions.

The media have reported that the Parole Board unanimously decided to release Petrac and Sulic because they both submitted extensive medical documentation to prove that their health had been impaired. In the case of Norac, who will profit the most from the Parole Board's decision because he will leave the prison four years earlier, the decision of the Parole Board was not unanimous because he failed to express remorse for the crimes committed.

The nongovernmental organisations Documenta, the Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights, and the Civil Committee on Human Rights protested against Norac's release, recalling that he failed to express regret over the killing of Serb civilians in Gospic and his omission to punish those responsible for the murder of civilians and prisoners of war in the Medak Pocket.