Croatian prosecutors on Friday charged a former Serbian paramilitary commander, extradited from Australia last year, with the torture and murder of civilians and prisoners of war during the country's 1990s conflict.
Dragan Vasiljkovic, nicknamed 'Captain Dragan,' was indicted for the detention and torture of Croatian civilians and police in the ethnic Serb rebel stronghold of Knin, the prosecutors said.
As the commander of a Serb paramilitary unit he did "nothing to prevent and punish such crimes" that occurred in 1991, and personally took part in them, a prosecutor's statement said.
Vasiljkovic was also charged with ordering the torture and killing of two detained Croatian soldiers in the village of Bruska, near Benkovac, in the country's south in 1993.
The 61-year-old orchestrated a deadly attack in 1991 on the central town of Glina and the surrounding region in which a civilian and a German reporter were killed while the local population had to flee their homes, the statement said.
Vasiljkovic was extradited by Canberra last July after almost a decade-long legal battle. He was the first suspected war criminal extradited by Australia.
Zagreb sought Vasiljkovic's extradition from Canberra after he was first arrested in 2006.
In Australia, the Belgrade-born suspect worked as a golf instructor under the name Daniel Snedden. He denied committing war crimes but told media he had trained recruits, killed people in combat and interrogated enemy troops.
Croatia's proclamation of independence from the former Yugoslavia sparked the 1991-1995 war with rebel Serbs who opposed the move.
The conflict claimed some 20,000 lives.
