Belgrade - Serbia said Wednesday it has arrested Bosnian Serb Stojan Zupljanin, one of the four remaining fugitive war crimes suspects charged by The Hague-based United Nations war crimes tribunal.

Zupljanin, 57, was arrested in the vicinity of Belgrade, the Serbian war crimes prosecutor's office said. He is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

During the 1992-95 Bosnian war he was a prominent member of Radovan Karadzic's Bosnian Serb authorities which had organized the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Srebrenica Muslims.

Zupljanin was a top official in the police and secret services and special advisor to Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime military commander and the Hague's most wanted suspect.

During the war, according to the ICTY indictment amended in 1999, he assisted in genocide and committed crimes against humanity and violated rules and practices of war.

The remaining three fugitives are Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic.

The arrest and delivery of the fugitives for trial in The Hague is a crucial condition for Serbia's further approach to European Union membership.

In a June 5 report to the United Nations, the ICTY prosecutor Serge Brammertz said Serbia made "no visible progress in the past six months" in the search for the remaining fugitives. (dpa)