The jury found Bozo Kevala, 36, and Mile Kodzoman, 32, guilty on the imprisonment charge, but found them innocent of charges of kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap foreign officials.
They were accused of holding six consulate employees hostage for more than 10 hours on Aug. 17 with guns and a phony bomb in an attempt to free a fellow Croatian from a West German prison.
The two man feared West Germay would extradite a fellow countryman, Stjepan Bilandzic, to Yugoslavia where they claimed he would be executed for political reasons.
Kevala and Kodzoman could be sentenced to 10 years in prison. A date for sentencing was not immediately set.
Defense attorneys contended that their clients acted out of blind concern for Bilandsic [sic] and never intended to hurt anyone.
During the five-day trial, three hostages testified that Kodzoman and Kelava held them at gunpoint and "threatened to detonate" two bombs if their demands for Bilandzic's release were not met.
Bilandzic later was released by the West Germans, but not as a result of the consulate takeover.
Several policemen and FBI agents also testified they heard Kodzoman warn lawmen that if he were shot, Kelava would kill the hostages.
Prosecutors played a tape recording of a trans-Atlantic telephone call between the defendants and Bilandzic during the siege. During the conversation, in Croatian, Kodzoman told Bilandzic: "But we still have six hostages on our hands... If you want, we are ready, like Bozo said this morning, that we throw them through the window."
The defense portrayed their clients as mild-mannered nationalists who never intended harm. During cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, they dwelled on the light-hearted and humorous aspects of the siege.