The Croatian National Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HNS BiH) said on Sunday that BiH judicial institutions had no basis for their "shameful request" that Croatia prosecutes wartime commanders of crimes allegedly committed in the 1995 Operation Flash.

The Croatian Justice Ministry has confirmed receiving a document requesting that Croatia take over the prosecution of 14 Croatian Army generals which BiH suspects of war crimes committed during Flash, a May 1995 military and police operation that liberated western Slavonia after four years of occupation by rebel local Serbs.

The Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office list names generals Pavao Miljavac, Mladen Markač, Marijan Mareković, Davor Domazet Lošo and Luka Džanko, as well as deceased generals Petar Stipetić, Imra Agotić and Ivan Basarac, Croatian media said on Saturday.

“This shameful request has no basis at all, especially not for prosecuting anyone in the context of Operation Flash, which liberated Croatian territory. It is a classic attempt to abuse BiH institutions,” the HNS BiH, an organisation of Croat political parties in BiH, said in a press release.

It added that this was an attempt to criminalise through BiH judicial institutions the Croatian Army as well as the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), the Bosnian Croat army during the 1992-95 war in BiH.

The HNS BiH said the request was coming at a time when Croatia’s 1995 Operation Storm should be celebrated in Sarajevo because it prevented a massacre in the northwestern town Bihać, BiH, like the one in Srebrenica.

The organisation said it rejected “any attempt to manipulate historical facts” and “revise the honourable role” of the Croatian Army and the HVO.