Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive arrested

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia, May 31 (Reuters) A Bosnian Serb officer accused of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1992-95 Bosnia war was arrested by Serb and Bosnian police today and is awaiting extradition, officials said.

The arrest boosts the prospects of both Serbia and Bosnia for closer ties with the European Union.

Zdravko Tolimir was a close aide of Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, one of the top fugitives wanted by the United Nations tribunal in the Hague. He is believed to be the chief logistics operative in Mladic's network of supporters.

''We understand (Tolimir) has some health issues and we will try to assess what these issues are in order to make arrangements for his transportation to The Hague,'' tribunal spokesman Refik Hodzic told Reuters.

A Bosnian Serb source close to the arrest said Tolimir was being held in Banja Luka, the capital of Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic. A senior Serbian source said Tolimir had been arrested on the border between Serbia and the Serb Republic.

Serbia's talks on closer ties with the EU were frozen last year over Belgrade's failure to arrest Mladic. The EU says talks can resume if Serbia shows concrete signs of cooperating with The Hague by arresting fugitives.

Bosnia's talks are also stalled over delayed reforms and the persistent nationalist leanings of the Serbian half of the country, and will surely be boosted as well by the arrest.

EU TALKS NEAR The arrest comes just ahead of a visit to Serbia next week by Hague Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, the main person the EU is likely to consult before resuming talks with Belgrade.

Del Ponte, who says Mladic is hiding in Serbia aided by hardliners in the army and police, has asked the EU in the past to keep up pressure on Serbia by withholding talks on a so-called Stabilisation and Association Agreement until more fugitives are behind bars.

Rasim Ljajic, head of Serbia's office for cooperation with the Hague, said the arrest had shown the new determination by Serb authorities.

After handing over a dozen suspects to The Hague in 2005, Serbia last year appeared to put the tribunal on the back burner and instead stepped up nationalist rhetoric while trying to deal with the possibility of losing its breakaway Kosovo province.

''There is no doubt that the talks with the EU will resume, that del Ponte's report will be more positive than earlier reports, and that we are creating a new climate of confidence in relations between the tribunal and Belgrade,'' Ljajic said.

Tolimir's arrest leaves five ethnic Serbs still on the run, including Mladic and his political boss Radovan Karadzic.

Both men are indicted for genocide for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, which claimed over 10,000 lives, and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.

''No Hague fugitive can sleep peacefully,'' Ljajic said.

''It would be best for remaining indictees to surrender,'' he added, because otherwise they would be hunted down and arrested.

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