A former Serb paramilitary commander, extradited from Australia last year after a decade-long legal battle, said Tuesday he was "insulted" by war crimes charges against him as his trial opened in Croatia.
Dragan Vasiljkovic -- or 'Captain Dragan' -- became the first suspected war criminal to be extradited by Australia when he was handed over last July. He is accused of the torture and murder of civilians and prisoners of war in the 1990s.
The 61-year-old arrived in handcuffs at the tribunal in the coastal town of Split, wearing a dark suit and grey tie. Inside the courtroom, he smiled before the trial opened, N1 television reported.
Grey-haired and pale, Vasiljkovic pleaded "absolutely not guilty" after a tribunal judge read out the indictment, N1 said.
"I perceive myself as a defender of my homeland Yugoslavia," he told the court. He said it was "insulting to be called an aggressor".
Croatia's proclamation of independence from the former Yugoslavia sparked the 1991-1995 war with Belgrade-backed rebel Serbs. The conflict claimed some 20,000 lives.
The former commander of a Serb paramilitary unit, who worked as a golf instructor under a different name in Australia, labelled his indictment "comic and outrageous," N1 said.
Vasiljkovic was charged with setting up in mid-1991, at the start of the war, an "improvised prison" at the fortress in the ethnic Serb rebel stronghold of Knin.
There, his subordinates tortured detained Croatian policemen and civilians by "beating them with hands, feet and ox tendons... pushing guns in their mouths," the indictment said.
As a commander he did "nothing to prevent and punish such crimes" and personally took part in them, it said.
- Shooting at civilians -
Belgrade-born Vasiljkovic was also indicted for ordering the torture and killing of two detained Croatian soldiers in the village of Bruska, near Benkovac, in the country's south in 1993.
He also orchestrated a deadly 1991 attack on the central town of Glina and the surrounding region in which a civilian and a German reporter were killed, while local people had to flee their homes, the indictment said.
Vasiljkovic allegedly ordered shooting at civilian targets from "tanks, mortars, armoured vehicles, snipers" as well as the tank shelling of a church and a school in a nearby village.
His trial, during which more than 50 witnesses are expected to be questioned, is taking place under heavy security measures.
Vasiljkovic was first arrested in Australia in 2006 and his extradition to Croatia last year was hailed by the victims and their families.
But the suspect's lawyers filed a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Council against Australia and Croatia over both the "illegality" of their client's extradition and his 10-year detention.
The trial, which has attracted strong media interest in Croatia and Serbia, continues next month with the questioning of witnesses.
