A Bosnian Serb wanted for crimes against humanity surrendered to the UN war crimes court in a move likely to ease international pressure on Yugoslavia to cooperate with the tribunal.
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Mr Blagoje Simic, accused of orchestrating a 1992 campaign of ethnic cleansing while the top civilian official in the Bosnian town of Samac, protested his innocence and said he was giving himself up voluntarily.
His lawyer, speaking just before the war crimes suspect flew from Belgrade to the Netherlands, said Mr Simic had a Yugoslav passport and was the first Yugoslav citizen to turn himself in to the tribunal. Mr Simic has dual nationality.
The new reformist leadership in Yugoslavia is under heavy international pressure to begin cooperating with the tribunal. It faces US economic sanctions if it is not deemed to have begun cooperating by the end of March.
Mr Simic is the most senior official named in the so-called Bosanski Samac indictment, in which five men are accused of planning and waging a campaign of persecutions and ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Croats and Muslims and other non-Serb civilians in Samac in April 1992.
Prosecutors said they hoped Mr Simic's surrender was the start of a process leading to the transfer of their most wanted figures, including Bosnian Serb wartime leader Mr Radovan Karadzic, his military commander Mr Ratko Mladic and former Yugoslav president Mr Slobodan Milosevic.