Vasiljevic is alleged to be helping Karadzic escape justice

Nato-led forces in Bosnia say they are holding a Serb man suspected of helping war crimes suspects evade arrest.

Spokesman Jeff Coverdale said members of the Stabilisation Force (S-For) surrounded the house of Dragan Vasiljevic in the town of Bijeljina before breaking in and arresting him at 0700 local time (0500 GMT).

The arrest is the first by S-For in a campaign targeting networks alleged to be supporting fugitives such as wartime Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

Mr Karadzic himself is thought to be hiding somewhere in the east of the Bosnian Serb Republic or in Montenegro, while General Mladic is reported to be in Serbia.

Crackdowns

Mr Coverdale said Mr Vasiljevic would be handed over to the Bosnian Serb authorities after being questioned by peacekeepers.

He added that Mr Vasiljevic was suspected of being the bodyguard of another fugitive, Ljubomir Borovcanin, who was indicted for war crimes committed in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica during the 1992-95 war.

In March Paddy Ashdown, the international community's High Representative in Bosnia, announced a crackdown on anyone helping war crimes suspects.

S-For and other international agencies moved against two men with suspected links to Mr Karadzic freezing their assets and seizing documents from their offices.

One of the two, businessman and former Bosnian Serb Justice Minister Momcilo Mandic, was detained in Serbia in April by police investigating the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.