The operation was part of a plan drawn up by the JNA aimed at securing the Dubrovnik area and then proceeding north-west to link up with the JNA troops in northern Dalmatia via western Herzegovina. The offensive was accompanied by a significant amount of war propaganda. In 2000, Montenegrin president Milo Đukanović apologized for the siege, eliciting an angry response from his political opponents and from Serbia. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted two Yugoslav officers for their involvement in the siege and handed a third over to Serbia for prosecution. The ICTY indictment stated that the offensive was designed to detach the Dubrovnik region from Croatia and integrate it into a Serb-dominated state through an unsuccessful proclamation of the Dubrovnik Republic on 24 November 1991. In addition, Montenegro convicted four former JNA soldiers of prisoner abuse at the Morinj camp. Croatia also charged several former JNA or Yugoslav Navy officers and a former Bosnian Serb leader with war crimes, but no trials have yet resulted from these indictments.