Bosnian Serb eyed in war crimes held in Argentina

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro -- A Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect, who has been indicted by a UN tribunal for some of the worst atrocities in the Bosnian war, was arrested yesterday in Argentina.

The suspect, Milan Lukic, was being held at a police station in Buenos Aires. He will be questioned by a judge after he was arrested on an ''international request," the Argentine Federal Police reported. No details on the arrest were released.

Lukic was indicted by the UN tribunal in The Hague in 2000 on charges of crimes against humanity. He also has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Serbia for war crimes, but he has been on the run since late 1990s.

Lukic, who is among the war crimes suspects wanted by The Hague court, has been charged with the abduction and the killing of 20 Muslims from Serbia in 1993 at a border area.

Lukic has been sentenced in absentia by a Serbian court to 20 years in prison for his role in the abduction of 16 Muslims from a bus in eastern Serbia in 1992.

Lukic, as a member of a notorious paramilitary group called the Avengers, allegedly took part in the abduction of the Muslims, 15 men and a woman, who were taken to Bosnia, were tortured at a local hotel, and were executed. Their bodies were then dumped into the Drina River.

Lukic was the second Serb war crimes fugitive to have been arrested in Argentina this year. Nebojsa Minic, whom Serbia has accused of war crimes in Kosovo, was arrested in May in the western Argentine town of Mendoza, after a tip from the US-based Human Rights Watch.

Two other major Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitives, Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader during the war, and General Ratko Mladic, the military commander, remain at large.