'Third most-wanted' war crimes fugitive arrested

The Balkans’ "third most-wanted" war crimes fugitive was arrested on the Bosnia-Serbia border today, Serbian officials said.

A spokeswoman for the chief UN war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia said they were informed of the arrest of former Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir by Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik.

The spokesman added that preparations for Tolimir’s transfer to the UN detention unit near The Hague, Netherlands, were underway.

Tolimir, indicted by the UN tribunal in The Hague, was a top aide to the Bosnian Serb wartime military commander, General Ratko Mladic, during the slaughter of over 7,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995 – the worst single atrocity in Europe since the Second World War.

The former general – who was reported to have organised Mladic’s escape from justice – was arrested after a major security sweep of the border region that included helicopters and anti-terrorist units, said Serbian officials

“Tolimir was considered the mastermind of the actions to shelter Mladic for a long time,” Rasim Ljajic, a Serbian government minister in charge of cooperation with The Hague tribunal, told state television.

Tolimir is considered by U.N. war crimes prosecutors as the third most wanted fugitive after Mladic and Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic, who are both still at large.