Belgrade  - Serbia's most wanted war crime suspect, Ratko Mladic, has been hiding in a Belgrade apartment for a number of years, the Press daily said Monday quoting police sources.

The newspaper said Mladic, a Serb general wanted by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on charges of genocide, maintains contact with only one person, who brings food and medication to the flat in a Belgrade suburb, the paper said.

Police were "intensely" investigating the allegations, Press said. The government minister in charge of war crimes, Rasim Ljajic, said Serbia was still unaware of Mladic's whereabouts.

The extradition of Mladic and another fugitive to The Hague-based ICTY is a key remaining obstacle to Serbia's closer ties with the European Union.

Belgrade has in the past denied any knowledge of Mladic's movements, but eventually admitted that he actually enjoyed protection at military facilities even years after the regime of Slobodan Milosevic fell in 2000.

ICTY indicted Mladic, the Serb military chief during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, for crimes such as the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica and the relentless shelling of Sarajevo.

Alongside Mladic, Serbia has been asked to hand over another ICTY suspect, the Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic. (dpa)