According to the statement, the judge ruled that the three suspects be remanded in custody for a month, which is what the Office of the Osijek County Prosecutor had requested, citing the risk of interference with the investigation and the gravity of the charges.

According to the county prosecutor's investigation motion, in the period from July 1991 to June 1992, Brodarac, who at the time was head of the Sisak police department, and Milankovic, the then commander of all active and reserve local police units, failed to do anything to prevent members of units under their command from unauthorised and forcible entry into the homes of local Serb residents. The motion reads that those units conducted unlawful searches, made illegal arrests of local Serbs and took them to makeshift prisons, and interrogated them, subjecting them to physical and mental abuse and inflicting on them grave bodily injuries.

At least 69 civilians from the Sisak area were subjected to such conduct, of whom 31 were killed.

Even though they were aware that those procedures were unlawful, the three men personally ordered unlawful arrests of a number of Serb civilians and took part in their torture, according to the investigation motion.

Bosnjak is suspected of having organised, in the area of Sisak and Banovina region in August 1991, when he was a member of the special police unit "Vukovi" (Wolves), contrary to international laws of war and humanitarian law, a group consisting of as yet unidentified members of the unit with whom he unlawfully arrested, tortured and killed people of Serb nationality.

Eight people were killed in that way, and they are among the 31 victims with whose murder the three men are now charged.

The suspects were brought to the Osijek County Court investigating centre on June 21, and when they were questioned by the investigating judge they actively presented their defence, denying all the charges.