Belgrade  - Serbia's ultranationalist opposition party on Wednesday accused President Boris Tadic and "his regime" of provoking clashes that broke out during a protest over the arrest of war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

The Radical Party's claim was in line with a stream of anti-government rhetoric at Tuesday's rally in Belgrade, which the party organized. Hours later, Serbia extradited Karadzic to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Tadic "personally organized and provoked" the violence in the capital in an effort to "liquidate" opponents, Radical deputy chief Tomislav Nikolic charged at a news conference.

A lawmaker from Tadic's Democratic Party, Nada Kolundzija, rejected the accusation. Days of hate-filled rhetoric by the rally's organizers set the stage for the violence, she told B92 television.

About 150 rioters clashed with police for about an hour on the fringes of Tuesday's rally, smashing windows, garbage bins and lampposts and throwing stones and bricks at the police.

More than 70 people were hurt, including two dozen police officers and two journalists. Around 10,000 people gathered in the rally, while the Radicals had said they expected 100,000 or more.

Nikolic also criticized Interior Minister and Tadic's government partner Ivica Dacic, saying the police "viciously" attacked Radical officials, the Tanjug state news agency reported.

Dacic, who controls the police, heads the late Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist party and formed a government with Tadic this month.

Within days, Serbian security forces arrested Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader indicted by the UN war crimes court in The Hague for genocide during Bosnia war
1992-95.

Since the July 21 arrest, Tadic has received death threats, many in the form of e-mails to his office.

Radical official Vjerica Radeta last week called Tadic a traitor and warned he could end up like the late Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic.

Djindjic, who led the Democratic Party now headed by Tadic, was killed in 2003 by Milosevic's special police forces. His government had extradited the late Serbian autocrat in 2001 to The Hague, where he died in 2006 while awaiting trial.

The Radicals plan to continue organizing daily protests against "Tadic's tyrannic regime," they said. (dpa)