The suspects include six active police officers of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, prosecution spokesman Bruno Vekaric told Radio B92, adding that the prosecution requested that the suspects be remanded in custody.
"Our request for an investigation refers to the event in Suva Reka, where, according to our information, 48 people were killed, of whom 14 were under the age of 15," Vekaric said.
The civilians killed in Suva Reka included two babies, a 24-year-old pregnant woman and a 100-year-old woman. The bodies were buried at a military range in Prizren, Kosovo. Two weeks later, an order came from Belgrade to transfer the bodies to a police range in Batajnica near Belgrade.
The mass grave at Batajnica was discovered in spring 2001.
The Serbian Ministry of the Interior said in May 2001 that the transfer of the bodies from Kosovo and their burial at secret locations in Serbia was agreed during the NATO air raids in March 1999, at the cabinet of the then Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.