War crime fugitive's aide gives up

A senior aide to top Bosnian Serb fugitive Ratko Mladic has turned himself in to face war crimes charges in The Hague, the fourth wanted man to surrender in Belgrade in five months.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said the decision by former general Milan Gvero, 67, vindicated his policy of relying on persuasion rather than arrest to meet the United Nations tribunal's demand that all suspects be handed over.

Gvero is not on the list of those publicly accused by the court in The Hague for alleged atrocities in the 1992-95 Bosnia war, but the Government said it had received his "sealed", or unpublicised, indictment.

Serbia has been under intense Western pressure to hand over war crimes suspects as a condition for future integration with the European Union and Nato.