BELGRADE - A Bosnian Serb general counted as one of the top fugitives from the UN war crimes tribunal was arrested in Bosnia on Thursday, a Serbian government official and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said.
Zdravko Tolimir, one of the closest allies of the tribunal's most-wanted man, former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic, was apprehended in the operation, they said.
Tolimir, 58, who faces a 2005 indictment from The Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, was believed to have been hiding in Serbia.
He is one of the six suspects wanted by the ICTY. All of them are Serbs, including Mladic and his wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic.
Bosnian television station B92 said Tolimir was tracked down and detained in Bosnia close to the Serbian border at 2:45 pm (1245 GMT) in a raid involving police from Serbia and Bosnia's Serbian entity.
The former general was the most wanted fugitive of the UN war crimes court after Mladic and Karadzic.
During Bosnia's 1992-1995 war Tolimir was one of the closest allies of Mladic, in charge of intelligence.
He is considered the key organiser of the network that has helped Mladic to avoid justice.
His arrest came just days ahead of a visit to Belgrade by war crimes prosector Del Ponte.
It also comes two weeks after a new Serbian government that includes President Boris Tadic's pro-European Democratic Party was formed, and after an unsuccessful raid on a Belgrade hotel to find Mladic.
Earlier on Thursday, the Serbian government created a national security council aimed at improving its war crimes cooperation.
The council, chaired by Tadic, is seen as a key step to the resumption of rapprochement talks between Serbia and the European Union which could lead to the Balkan state being made an EU member.
European Union enlargement chief Olli Rehn said this month the establishment of such a council was the only remaining hurdle to restarting talks with Serbia on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement.
The EU suspended the SAA talks -- a first step for Balkans states hoping to join the bloc -- a year ago because Serbia was not fully cooperating with ICTY.
05/31/2007 17:38 GMT