Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, wanted for planning and ordering Europe's worst atrocities since World War II, has been arrested after 11 years on the run.
"Mr Karadzic was located and arrested," President Boris Tadic said in a terse statement on Monday night that Bosnian Muslims had begun to despair of ever hearing.
It brought people out in the night onto the streets of Sarajevo, the city his troops shelled mercilessly during a 43-month siege, to celebrate the capture of the man charged with authorising the slaughter of 11,000 of their fellow citizens.
"I called and woke up my whole family," said Sarajevo resident Fadil Bico, as cars streamed through the streets honking horns and Bosnian state radio played excerpts of Mr Karadzic's wartime hate speeches.
Serbian government sources said Mr Karadzic was arrested on Monday but had been under surveillance in Serbia for several weeks, after a tip-off from a foreign intelligence service.
He did not resist arrest. His lawyer, Svetozar Vujacic, told reporters Mr Karadzic was arrested on Friday night, while taking a bus between two suburbs of Belgrade, and had been held for three days before the announcement.
The last published pictures of Mr Karadzic date from the late 1990s. Investigators conducted a formal identification process, including DNA testing, before interviewing him overnight. His lawyer said he looked the same, with his trademark grey, floppy hair, but had lost weight. Mr Karadzic's arrest was one of the main conditions of Serbian progress towards European Union membership, which most of its people desire. One-third say they oppose joining until the bloc stops supporting the secession of the province of Kosovo.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said yesterday he expected the chief UN war crimes prosecutor to declare Serbia in cooperation with the court after the arrest of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
"I am almost certain... he is going to say there is full cooperation," Mr Solana told reporters at a meeting in Brussels, referring to a move which in turn would unblock Serbia's path towards membership of the 27-nation bloc.
Richard Holbrooke, former US Balkan troubleshooter during the wars of the 1990s described Mr Karadzic as the Osama bin Laden of Europe, "a real, true architect of mass murder".
His arrest leaves two war crimes suspects still wanted by the Hague tribunal.
But it should be enough to secure Serbia closer ties with the EU and possibly the status of EU membership candidate state this year.
Mr Karadzic was indicted along with his army commander, General Ratko Mladic, for genocide at Srebrenica, where some 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslim males were rounded up and murdered and bulldozed into mass graves in July 1995.
The arrest came on the eve of a meeting of EU foreign ministers scheduled to discuss closer relations with Belgrade following the formation of a new pro-Western government.
"It proves the determination of the new Serbian government to achieve full cooperation with the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia). It is also very important for Serbia's European aspirations," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised Serbian authorities for taking a "decisive step toward ending impunity" of those indicted for crimes in Balkan conflicts.
"This is a historic moment for the victims, who have waited 13 years for Mr Karadzic to be brought to justice," he said in a statement released by the United Nations.
Reactions to the arrest
• Lawrence Eagleburger, US Secretary of State during the Yugoslav Wars, and earlier a US ambassdfor to Yugoslavia: "He has blood on his hands... I'm sure there were a number of people in the (Serbian) military and the police who almost certainly knew more or less where he was and could have picked him up."
• Mr Karadzic's wife Ljiljana Zelen Karadzic: "I can only say that we are in shock and disbelief," she told reporters gathered in front of her sister's house in Pale, Mr Karadzic's wartime stronghold.
• Bosnian Muslim leader Haris Silajdzic: "This is at least some satisfaction for the families of victims. Justice cannot be fully met without Mr Karadzic's and Mr Mladic's arrest. But the fact remains that Mr Milosevic is dead, Mr Karadzic is arrested but their project of ethnic cleansing unfortunately still lives on in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This will have a positive effect on Bosnia. We need this catharsis, we need people to know there is justice."
• Serge Brammertz, Chief Prosecutor of the UN Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. "On behalf of the Office of the Prosecutor, I would like to congratulate the Serbian authorities, especially the National Security Council, Serbia's Action Team in charge of tracking fugitives and the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor, on achieving this milestone in cooperation with the ICTY.
• EU enlargement chief Olli Rehn: "This is certainly a milestone in Serbia's cooperation with the international criminal tribunal on the former Yugoslavia. It proves the determination of the new government to achieve full cooperation with the tribunal. It is very important for Serbia's European aspirations."