Serb war crimes fugitive arrested in Montenegro

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serb police general indicted for crimes against humanity for ordering the killings of Kosovo Albanians in 1998-99 was arrested on Sunday and was on his way to The Hague war crimes tribunal.

Vlastimir Djordjevic is the second Serb fugitive to be held in three weeks.

His arrest marks a change of course by Serbia's month-old government after a year of inaction and defiance and raises the question of whether the tribunal's most wanted fugitive, Ratko Mladic, might at some point follow him into custody.

Djordjevic was arrested in the coastal resort town of Budva in neighboring Montenegro, Rasim Ljajic, head of Serbia's council for cooperation with The Hague, told Reuters.

"It was a joint action of Serbian and Montenegrin police and of the Hague tribunal," Ljajic said. "He is on his way to The Hague."

A spokesman for the Hague tribunal confirmed Djordjevic had been detained and was due to be handed over imminently.

Montenegrin media said Djordjevic had been working in Budva for two months and had grown a beard.

Montenegro has not been mentioned as a possible hiding place for Djordjevic, who was believed to have escaped to Russia years ago. U.N. veto-holder Russia is now backing Serbia's bid to prevent the independence of Kosovo.

The arrest was apparent confirmation of Serbia's new willingness to engage with the West, which wants to see Serbia join the EU and NATO but also strongly supports independence for Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.

Djordjevic was indicted in October 2003 for his role in a brutal Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas in 1998-99.

At least 10,000 civilians, overwhelmingly ethnic Albanians, died in the Kosovo conflict, which prompted NATO's first war and ended with the United Nations taking control of the province eight years ago this month.

MORE ARRESTS?

The arrest of Djordjevic is sure to please Hague chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who is due to report to the United Nations Security Council on Monday on Serbia's cooperation with her court, her last report before stepping down in September.

It is also likely to feed speculation that the net is closing around Mladic, indicted for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo.

Mladic, a hero to Serb ultranationalists, is still at large, along with his political boss Radovan Karadzic and two more ethnic Serbs wanted for crimes during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia.

Del Ponte says all four are in Serbia under the protection of hardliners in the army and police, and has called on the European Union to use the lure of closer ties -- and the threat of isolation -- to push Serbia into handing them over.

After more than a year of no action, Belgrade gave way at the end of May and arrested fugitive Zdravko Tolimir.

The arrest officially took place on the border with Bosnia, but political sources and Tolimir himself say he had been living in Serbia all along and had simply been dumped over the border for internal political reasons.

That arrest was enough to unfreeze talks on closer ties between Serbia and the EU, but Brussels has said it wants more fugitives behind bars before signing a deal.

(Additional reporting by Matt Robinson in Pristina and Reed Stevenson in Amsterdam)