Serb war crimes suspect captured

A former Serb police general accused of atrocities against Kosovar Albanians was captured yesterday, stoking speculation that the net was finally closing on Serbia's most wanted men.

Vlastimir Djordjevic was seized in the Adriatic resort of Budva in Montenegro, where he is believed to have been living for the past two months under a false identity. He was expected to be flown to the United Nations court at The Hague last night.

Anton Nikiforov, a spokesman for the UN court, said the arrest "was carried out in co-operation between the office of the [UN] prosecutor, Montenegrin authorities and Serbia, and it is a sign of the good co-operation we established on a regional level".

"We want to praise Montenegrin police and Serb authorities for another successful operation," he added.

Gen Djordjevic's arrest comes barely a fortnight after the capture of former Bosnian Serb commander Zdravko Tolimir, which prompted the EU to resume talks on closer ties with Belgrade that had been frozen over its failure to catch war crimes suspects.

Gen Tolimir was seen as a close ally of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military leader who is wanted along with his wartime political boss, Radovan Karadzic, over the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica.

The chief UN prosecutor believes the two men, and two other fugitives, are in Serbia, being protected by hard-line nationalist elements of the security services. The new coalition government in Belgrade has pledged to arrest all the men and send them to The Hague.

Gen Djordjevic was indicted in October 2003 for his role in a brutal Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1998-1999, when at least 10,000 civilians, overwhelmingly Kosovars, were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

Some analysts see Serbia's new-found determination to catch war crimes suspects as part of a drive to win the favour of Washington and major EU nations that want to grant Kosovo independence in the coming months - a move Belgrade staunchly opposes.