The 44-year-old Fred Margus from Cepin near Osijek was taken to an investigating judge in Osijek on Thursday on suspicion of committing war crimes against Serb civilians from Osijek in 1991.
The suspect, a former member of the Croatian army, is charged along with a group of other Croatian army members whose identity has not been established, with conspiracy to kill Serb civilians from Osijek.
They are suspected of abducting Radoslav Ratkovic from his Osijek home in 1991 and of subjecting him to physical and mental torture, after which they took him to the banks of the Drava River, where they shot him in the head. Margus is suspected of pushing the man's body into the river. The gravely wounded Ratkovic managed to survive.
The group is suspected of abducting, in the evening of the same day, another Osijek resident, Milutin Kutlic, who was also subjected to physical and mental torture and taken to the Drava River banks, where he was shot in the head and pushed into the river.
Margus, who was arrested on Wednesday, denied having committed the said crimes when interviewed by the investigating judge yesterday.
His arrest is part of ongoing investigations into allegations of war crimes against Serb civilians in Osijek during the war in 1991.