Answering a question about his health, General Markac said that he had recently undergone a surgery and that he was now recovering. He said that he was being provided with appropriate health care. General Gotovina answered that his health was good.

Under the rules of this UN tribunal, regular status conferences have to be held at which indictees and convicts are given an opportunity to speak about conditions in the detention facilities, their health problems and some other matters.

The previous status conference in the Gotovina and Markac case was held on 23 May this year.

The appeal proceedings in the case are expected to be completed by the end of the year. In May 2010 the trial chamber found the two generals guilty of war crimes committed during and in the wake of a 1995 Croatian military offensive, known as Operation Storm, sentencing Gotovina to 24 years in prison and Markac to 18 years.

During today's conference Gotovina's lawyer Greg Kehoe tried to get more information about time frames for the ongoing proceedings, but the appeals chamber's president Theodor Meron said that he would provide information about that as soon as he had something to say on the matter.

At the conference, which lasted a few minutes, Judge Meron recalled the course of events so far in the appeal proceedings. He reminded that the appeals chamber ordered the prosecution to give its opinion whether Gotovina and Markac could be found guilty in line with their command responsibility in the event the accusations on a joint criminal enterprise are reversed.

The defence teams for the two Croatian generals insist that they could not be found guilty on the basis of their command responsibility which, they say, was not at all discussed and established during the trial before the ICTY trial chamber.