War crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic has been arrested near Belgrade posing as a doctor of alternative medicine, sporting long hair, a beard and glasses to hide his face.

A picture shown to reporters showed an unrecognisable Karadzic, markedly thin, with a long white beard and flowing hair.

Serbian officials said he was walking freely around town and earned money from practising medicine.

They said they could not divulge more details because it might jeopardise efforts to arrest two other war crime suspects on the run.

Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, went underground in 1997 after losing power and became one of the world's most wanted men.

He led the Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnia war, and was indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague in 1995 for authorising the shooting of civilians in the siege of Sarajevo.

He was indicted for genocide a second time for orchestrating the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men after Serbian military commander Ratko Mladic's forces seized the UN "safe area" of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia.

The West is also pressing for Mladic to be tried for war crimes.

The arrest of Karadzic and other alleged war criminals and their delivery to the Hague war crimes tribunal has been one of the main conditions of Serbian progress towards EU membership.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband agreed Karadzic's arrest could now help pave the way for Serbia to join the EU.

He said: "We have always said that Serbia has a place in the European family and that place depends not just on cultural, economic and political issues but also on the European values of justice and human rights.

"The determination of the Serb government to do what the international community asked bodes very well for long-term relations.

"This arrest will help close the region's decades of conflict, and pave the way for a brighter, European future for Serbia and the region."

A statement from the EU presidency, currently held by France, said the arrest was "an important step on the path to the rapprochement of Serbia with the European Union."

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