U.S. District Court Judge N. Carlton Tilley said he was inclined to allow army records from the Republic of Srpska — one of three warring factions in the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995 — to be used as evidence in the trials of three Bosnian Serb refugees later this month.

Milovjie Jankovic , Veselin Vidacak , and Ugljesa Pantic are all facing criminal charges of lying on immigration forms about prior military service.

The United States government alleges the men were part of a brigade responsible for the massacre of thousands of Muslims during the war. The men deny any involvement with the killings.

Tilley also said he likely would allow statements made through interpreters in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, when the men first applied to enter the United States and statements made following their arrests in December.

Tilley did not enter an order but said one would be forthcoming after he reviews the issues again.

His comments came at the end of a daylong evidentiary hearing for the upcoming trial at which the attorneys for the three men challenged the veracity of the military records, as well as the statements the men made through interpreters.

Much of the hearing focused on military records from the small state that was never recognized internationally.

Richard Butler, who spent six years as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, testified about the recovery of records from the headquarters of the Zvornik Brigade of the Republic of Srpska in 1998.

Butler now works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but he was present when the documents were taken for use in war crimes trials.

He explained how records from the seizure were indexed, scanned into electronic format and stored in The Hague, where the tribunal is based.

“With regard to the military records, I’m inclined to allow them,” Tilley said. “They were seized in the brigade headquarters when it was still a functioning brigade. … There’s no reason to falsify them. They have been kept in pristine condition.”

The three men’s attorneys — Scott Coalter, Chris Justice and Krispen Culbertson — also argued that the statements made on the men’s immigration forms were dubious because none of them speak English.

When the forms were filled out in Belgrade, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employee wrote down answers given through an interpreter and the men were told to sign.

Tilley said those issues could be raised in front of a jury.