Two former soldiers in Serbia have been found guilty of killing six civilians in a Croatian village during the 1991-95 Croatian war.

The war crimes court in Belgrade sentenced Pane Bulat and Rade Vranesevic on Monday to serve prison terms of 15 years and 12 years, respectively. The two men were found guilty of the murders of five elderly women and a man in Banski Kovačevac, Croatia, in March 1992.

The verdict points out that the civilians were killed with an automatic rifle and a pistol, and that their bodies were burned several days later.

Bulat and Vranesevic were in the Croatian Serb rebel force that fought against Croatia's decision to become independent. About 10,000 people died in the war, one of several bloody ethnic conflicts that marked the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Deputy War Crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekarić told reporters Serbia has faced the crimes in its recent past from which the country wants to distance itself. He noted that the verdict underlines the importance of the cooperation between the Serbian and the Croatian state prosecutions, and reminded that this is one of the 28 cases on which the two prosecutions are working together.