LONDON: Radovan Karadzic's arrest will encourage the Serbian Government to step up its hunt for the war criminal General Ratko Mladic, said Serb officials and Balkan experts.

But it could prove more hazardous to corner Mladic, wanted for his role in the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Karadzic's arrest was "a courageous decision by the Government", said a Serbian official. He pointed out that Zoran Djindjic, a former pro-Western prime minister, was assassinated in 2003 for handing over the late Yugoslavian president, Slobodan Milosevic, to The Hague.

"Getting Mladic could be more dangerous than getting Karadzic," said the official. "Probably he still has a friend or two."

An elite Serbian paramilitary leader, Milorad Ulemek, was jailed for Djindjic's murder last year. Serbia's current Prime Minister, Mirko Cvetkovic, political heir to Djindjic, took power earlier this month with a promise to step up the hunt for war-crimes suspects.

Mladic was possibly using false papers and an assumed identity to avoid detection, as Karadzic had done, the Serb official said. "There have been no sightings in the past five years or more. But obviously there is more optimism now that Mladic will be caught. He's a fugitive. He will not be feeling very comfortable today."

Since the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague charged Mladic with genocide in 1995, "rogue elements" in the Serbian military have reportedly hidden him.

He is believed to be living in Serbian territory and was last positively identified in 2000 at a Belgrade football match. The trail has since gone cold.

Guardian News & Media