The occupation of Lovas and the killing and expulsion of its civilian population was included in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indictments of the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević, and Goran Hadžić, a high-ranking official of the Croatian Serb-declared wartime breakaway region of SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia.

[4] The Yugoslav People's Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija – JNA) confiscated the weapons of Croatia's Territorial Defence (Teritorijalna obrana – TO) forces to minimize resistance.

[5] On 17 August, tensions escalated into an open revolt by Croatian Serbs,[6] centred on the predominantly Serb-populated areas of the Dalmatian hinterland around Knin,[7] and parts of the Lika, Kordun, Banovina and eastern Croatia.

[9] After a bloodless skirmish between Serb insurgents and Croatian special police in March,[10] the JNA itself, supported by Serbia and its allies, asked the Federal Presidency to give it wartime authorities and declare a state of emergency.

[11] The leadership of the JNA, fragmented between supporters of the federal government of Ante Marković and others aligned with Serbia since the breakup of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in 1990,[12] came under the control of Serbian President Slobodan Milošević.

[13] In early April, the leaders of the Croatian Serb revolt declared their intention to integrate the area under their control, known as SAO Krajina, with Serbia.

[19] Late 1991 saw the fiercest fighting of the war, as the 1991 Yugoslav campaign in Croatia culminated in the Siege of Dubrovnik,[20] and the Battle of Vukovar.

[23] During the initial stage of the battle, the JNA bypassed a number of Croat villages southeast of the city of Vukovar—including Lovas.

Once the attacking force entered the village, the troops continued to throw grenades and shoot at houses at random for several hours.

[29] The improvised prisons were also used for torture and abuse of captives, including war rape,[2] causing serious injuries to 18 civilians.

[32] On 17 October, all men aged 18 to 60 were ordered to report for a meeting, but were detained overnight instead on the pretext that someone had fired shots in the village the previous night.

[33] One of the civilians was killed by the guards,[34] before the group reached a point within 1 to 2 kilometres (0.62 to 1.24 miles) of the Vukovar–Tovarnik road, where they were ordered into a cloverfield at gunpoint.

[41] A monument to the civilian victims was erected at the site of the mass grave on 27 May 1999,[42] as was a cross to mark the location of the minefield.

[44] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) included war crimes against civilians and property committed in Lovas in October 1991 in its indictment of Milošević.

[46] In 1994 and 2004 Croatian authorities filed two separate cases against a total of 17 persons, including Devetak, and indicted them on charges of genocide and war crimes committed against the civilian population of Lovas.

[3] The ICTY also indicted Goran Hadžić, the Croatian Serb political leader in the eastern Slavonia region and head of the SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia government declared by the Croatian Serbs in the region at the time before it merged into the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

The charges include war crimes of persecutions, extermination, murder, imprisonment, torture, inhumane acts and cruel treatment, deportation, forcible transfer of population, wanton destruction and plunder of property.