Serbian police commandos stormed a Belgrade apartment early this morning and arrested a war crimes suspect who had been on the run for two years. a senior Interior Ministry source said.
Former Yugoslav National Army Colonel Veselin Sljivancaninwas taken into custody after a tense 10-hour standoff betweenriot police and his supporters outside the apartment block wherehe had apparently returned to celebrate his 50th birthday.
Tear gas and stun grenades were fired to disperse a hostilecrowd of several hundred nationalists before police battereddown the armoured door of his flat.
He is wanted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal inThe Hague in connection with the massacre in 1991 of some 200Croat and other non-Serb civilians following the Army's captureof the Danube river town Vukovar - one of the most notoriouswar crimes of Croatia's 1991-95 independence war.