Spanish police said today they had arrested a man on charges of genocide, rape and torture committed during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia between 1992 and 1995.
A statement said Veselin Vlahovic, who was born in Montenegro in 1969, had three international arrest warrants pending against him and was also wanted in Spain on charges ranging from armed robbery to burglary.
Also known as "Batko", Vlahovic is accused of hundreds of murders during the war in Bosnia, and was jailed after the conflict for an armed robbery in Montenegro in 1998.
Vlahovic had been at large since he escaped from the jail in 2001. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for shooting a man dead in Serbia shortly after his escape.
In Spain he is suspected of having taken part in a shoot-out in a night club in 2004, of armed robbery in 2005, when he also allegedly shot at police to escape arrest, in addition to forced entry.
Police arrested Vlahovic yesterday near his home in the southeastern province of Alicante as part of an investigation into a wave of burglaries.
Reuters