20000307

Bosnian Serb

camp commander

held

BANJA LUKA, (Bosnia): British troops in the international peacekeeping force on Sunday arrested Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Dragoljub Prcac, police said.

Prcac, who was deputy commander of the Omarska detention camp, was put on a plane to The Hague, where the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is based, Nato said.

Another Bosnian Serb, named by police as Rade Mikanovic, was also detained but not sent to The Hague as he is not on its list of ICTY suspects. An SFOR spokesman said Mikanovic, 35, was freed after being questioned.

Prijedor police said the two men were arrested as they were driving near the village of Omarska. They were pushed out of their car by the British soldiers in the SFOR force and driven to a base near Banja Luka.

Prcac, 63, was number two at the Omarska detention camp during the Bosnian war and was indicted in 1995 for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and gross violations of the Geneva conventions.

Prcac was the deputy to Miroslav Kvocka who went on trial at The Hague with three others on February 28. "Prcac is accused of being criminally responsible for the acts of his subordinates in committing crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, rape, inhumane acts and unlawful detention," Nato Secretary General George Robertson said in statement.

The Omarska camp, near Prijedor in northwest Bosnia, was used to hold non-Serbs interned by Bosnian Serb troops at the start of the three-year was in 1992.ÑAFP