Serbia snares top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive

(AFP/breitbart) -- Stojan Zupljanin, wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal in connection with atrocities against Muslims and Croats during the Bosnian war, has been arrested near Belgrade, officials said Wednesday.

He was among the most-wanted Serbs indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia -- alongside Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, who remain at large.

"One of The Hague indictees, Stojan Zupljanin, was arrested on the outskirts of Belgrade" shortly after noon (1000 GMT), Bruno Vekaric, prosecution spokesman for Serbia's war crimes court, told AFP.

Zupljanin, 56, was armed, but there were no casualties during his arrest, according to a source who requested anonymity.

In The Hague, the UN tribunal confirmed the arrest, but was unable to say when he would be transferred to its custody.

"That will depend on a number of formalities in the country where he was arrested," said ICTY spokeswoman Olga Kavran.

"Once in the detention unit, within a day or two, he will make his first appearance before the judges, and he will be given the opportunity to enter a plea," she explained.

Zupljanin has been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged central role in the hostilities and the destruction of the Muslim and Croat communities in northwestern Bosnia during the 1992-95 war.

The ICTY had also fingered him for genocide, but that indictment was later dropped.

Zupljanin was a former aide to Karadzic, who remains at large along with Mladic and another ICTY indictee, Goran Hadzic, wartime president of the self-proclaimed Croatian Serb republic of Krajina.

His indictment accused him of participating in the planning, ordering or committing of the "execution of a campaign designed to destroy Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, in whole or in part".

Thousands were held in horrific conditions in Serb-run camps during the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated.

Many did not survive -- and in the Prijedor area alone, more than 1,500 people were murdered in three notorious camps.

The Serbian war crimes office said the arrest of Zupljanin was headed by its chief prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic, and carried out by police and Serbia's police intelligence agency.

"Zupljanin was arrested in a flat" less than 10 kilometres (five miles) from central Belgrade, said Vekaric, adding he would be handed his ICTY indictement and likely be transferred to the Hague within three days.

The ICTY has been seeking Zupljanin since 1999, and having over the four Serb war crimes fugitives to its custody is the main condition for Serbia's integration into the European Union.

Zupljanin's arrest comes just days after chief UN war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz urged Serbia to do more to locate and arrest the remaining indictees.

"We strongly believe that the remaining fugitives -- Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic, Stojan Zupljanin and Goran Hadzic -- are within reach of the authorities in Serbia and that the Serbian authorities can do more to locate and arrest them, " Brammertz told to the UN Security Council.

"With the exception of a genuine but, alas, failed attempt to arrest Stojan Zupljanin, there has been no notable progress in this critical area of cooperation within the past six months."