Net tightens around Balkans' most wanted man

Pressure is mounting on the Bosnian Serb leadership to hand over wanted war criminal Radovan Karadzic to the UN.

Karadzic is reported to be prepared to surrender and give evidence in The Hague against Slobodan Milosevic.

The fugitive leader of the Bosnian Serbs during their brutal ethnic war against Muslims and Croats is facing genocide charges.

His top commander Ratko Mladic is also being sought.

Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Mladen Ivanic has met the chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte in The Hague.

The meeting comes two days after a defiant Milosevic was arraigned on four charges of crimes against humanity and violating the rules of war.

Ivanic has admitted Milosevic's surrender by the government of Serbia, the larger of the two remaining Yugoslav republics, increases pressure on his own government to cooperate with the tribunal.

So far, Republika Srpska, the Serbian half of the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, has arrested none of the 20 suspects indicted by the UN court.

Ivanic this week urged Karadzic and other indicted suspects to give themselves up to the tribunal, and said he expected some Serb fugitives who had lived in Serbia would now flee to Bosnia after Milosevic's transfer to The Hague.

His government has drawn up a draft law on cooperation with the tribunal which he says he expects to be approved by parliament within three weeks. The bill is similar to the legislation that cleared the way for Milosevic's surrender.