The judge Ninic issued a brief statement saying that he had questioned those three witnesses who had been at the site where Bilic had been seen for the last time on 7 June.

The statement reads that their testimonies were good but details could not be revealed for confidentiality reasons.

The questioning will resume on Wednesday and a total of 16 witnesses are to be heard in the investigative proceedings.

Lawyer Vinko Ljubicic, who represents the Bilic family, told reporters today that they would request the introduction of new evidence in the proceedings and an additional interrogation of Paravinja by the investigating judge.

The lawyer said that the Bilic family was satisfied with the investigation being carried by the office of the chief state prosecutor but that they had objections to the preliminary investigation conducted by the police in this case,

According to him, the family believes that a truck driven by Paravinja should have been located earlier.

Branko Baica, the court-appointed lawyer for Paravinja, said that his client was in "a satisfactory condition" and that he insisted on not being guilty for Antonia Bilic's murder.

Baica announced the questioning of Paravinja's wife and father, who live in Serbia, in the coming days. After that they will be allowed to visit Paravinja, who is being held in the investigative custody in the Croatian coastal city of Sibenik.

Antonia Bilic was last seen on Cikola Bridge in Drnis on the morning of June 7 entering a truck driven by the convicted rapist Paravinja. Two weeks after her disappearance, the police located the truck, and found evidence such as hair and blood which confirmed that this 17-year-old girl had been in that vehicle. Immediately, a search was launched to locate Paravinja but he had already fled abroad.

Upon his arrest in Bosnia on 26 June he confessed to the police in Banja Luka that he had strangled the underage girl from the town of Kricke near Drnis and dumped her body into the River Krka. He then denied his confession before the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying his statement was extorted by beatings.

The Croatian police combed the Sibenik hinterland for several weeks but did not found the girl's body.

On 25 July, the Bosnian authorities temporarily extradited Paravinja to Croatia. After the investigation into the circumstances of Bilic's disappearance, the Croatian authorities must hand over Paravinja back to the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They must do so by the time a court in Sokolac, where Paravinja was recently sentenced to two years and ten months in jail for rape, hands down a final verdict.

Serbia, where Paravinja was sentenced to four and a half years for rape but avoided serving the sentence by fleeing to Croatia, has also requested the handover of Paravinja from Bosnia.

Should the verdict delivered by the Sokolac court become final, the three countries will agree where Paravinja will serve this sentence and the one handed down by a Serbian court.

On Monday, Croatia's national police director Oliver Grbic and his Serbian counterpart Milorad Veljovic agreed on establishing a joint team of investigators to collect information about the 1994 death of Serbian journalist Radislava Vujasinovic and possible implication of Dragan Paravinja in the case, as speculated by the media. The media speculate that Paravinja may have been implicated in the murder of Radislava Vujasinovic, who wrote about links between Serbian politicians and underworld figures for the Serbian Duga weekly in the early 1990s.