MILAN Babic, the Serb leader of a rebel republic in Croatia and one of the key figures in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, committed suicide in prison, the UN war crimes tribunal said yesterday.

Milan Babic, the Serb leader of a rebel republic in Croatia and one of the key figures in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, has committed suicide in a Netherlands prison, the UN war crimes tribunal said today.