Mr Blagoje Simic, a Yugoslav citizen charged with crimes against humanity committed during the Bosnian war, said yesterday he was surrendering to the UN tribunal that indicted him.
His lawyer, speaking just before Mr Simic boarded an aircraft for the Netherlands at Belgrade airport, said he was the first Yugoslav citizen to turn himself in to the court in The Hague.
The new reformist leadership in Yugoslavia, the federal state now made up of only Serbia and Montenegro, is under heavy international pressure to begin cooperating with the tribunal. It faces US economic sanctions if it has not deemed to have begun co-operating by the end of this month.
"This act is absolutely voluntary," a solemn-looking Mr Simic told reporters before departing. "I'm absolutely convinced of my innocence and I'm sure I'll prove it."
Mr Simic has been indicted by the tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and violations of the laws and customs of war committed while he was the top civilian official in the Bosnian town of Samac.
The indictment accuses him and several others of planning and carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Samac after Serb forces took control of the town in April 1992.
"Blagoje Simic is the first Yugoslav citizen who has voluntarily handed himself over to the Hague tribunal," his lawyer, Mr Igor Pantovic, said at the airport.
Former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic surrendered to the tribunal in January of this year. She has pleaded not guilty on charges of genocide and other war crimes.
"Mr Simic believes the whole Serbian nation should not be a hostage (to cooperation with the tribunal)," he added.
"There are some advantages from this action as the Hague tribunal has a practice of allowing people who volunteer to surrender to defend themselves as free persons," Mr Pantovic said.
He said Mr Simic, born in 1960, according to his indictment, had first turned himself over to Serbian authorities and asked to be transferred to The Hague.
"This act is absolutely voluntary," a solemn-looking Mr Simic told reporters before leaving Belgrade. "I'm absolutely convinced of my innocence and I'm sure I'll prove it."
Prosecutors welcomed Mr Simic's move, saying they hoped it was the start of a process leading to the transfer of their most wanted men.
That list includes Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, his military commander Ratko Mladic and former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.