Following a request by Croatian authorities, federal police arrested Vasiljkovic last week in Sydney, some 4,000 kilometers away from his home in the Western Australian state capital, Perth.
At a hearing in Sydney's Central Local Court on Friday, Magistrate Allan Moore refused Vasiljkovic's request to be released on bail, AP said. Vasiljkovic was not in court for the hearing, but watched proceedings via a video-link from a jail in western Sydney, the agency reported.
Croatian Justice Minister Vesna Skare Ozbolt said last week Croatia would send Australia a formal request for the hand-over of Vasiljkovic as soon as the Sibenik County Court submits all documents on war crimes which Captain Dragan was suspected of.
The former commander of Serb paramilitary units in Croatia, who now holds Australian citizenship, appeared briefly in court last Friday and the court ruled detention without right to bail until the first hearing on January 27.
The 51-year-old Vasiljkovic is charged, in his capacity as commander of a special Serb paramilitary unit, with torturing and killing captive Croatian soldiers and police in a prison in Knin in June and July 1991 as well as in Bruska near Benkovac in February 1993.
He is also charged with devising, in agreement with a commander of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), a plan of attacks in the Glina area resulting in the destruction of civilian facilities, the expulsion of the local population, the plundering of their property, and the killing and wounding of civilians, including a foreign journalist.