Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect General Zdravko Tolimir has been delivered to the Hague war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands, Nato said today.
Tolimir, who was arrested yesterday, was flown from the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, after spending the night in a Nato base near the city.
During the 1992-95 Bosnia war, he was a close aide of Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, one of the top fugitives wanted by The Hague.
He is alleged to have helped Mladic plan and execute the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995 and is thought by military experts to have helped the commander evade arrest since.
Tolimir (58) was arrested on the border between Serbia and Bosnia's Serb Republic. Officials said the former general was ill, possibly with cancer.
His arrest leaves five ethnic Serbs from Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia still on the run, including Mladic and his political boss, Radovan Karadzic.
Both men are indicted for genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre as well as for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, which killed over 10,000.
Tolimir's delivery to The Hague will boost the prospects of Serbia and Bosnia for closer ties with the European Union, analysts said. Serbia's talks with the EU were frozen last year over Belgrade's failure to arrest Mladic.