Serbian police yesterday began searching two houses belonging to relatives of a war crimes fugitive Goran Hadzic, the Croatian Serb wartime leader, officials said.

“The aim of the action is the search for evidence and traces that could lead to people who are possibly helping him in hiding and who might assist in locating and finding” Hadzic, a statement from Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said.

No other details on the search were immediately available. Local TV B92 reported that the search has been conducted in Novi Sad, some 80 kilometres from the capital Belgrade, where Mr Hadzic used to live.

Mr Hadzic, 52, is wanted by the Hague-based UN war crimes court for war crimes and crimes against humanity over the murder of hundreds of Croatian civilians and the deportation of tens of thousands of Croats and other non-Serb civilians during Croatia’s 1991-1995 war.

The wartime leader of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) – a rebel Serb-held area during the war – disappeared from his home in July 2004, only hours after the UN war crimes tribunal issued its indictment against him.

He has been in hiding ever since.

In October 2009, police searched Mr Hadzic’s family house in Novi Sad. Some evidence were seized during the search, but no one was detained.

The arrest of Mr Hadzic and another remaining war crime suspect, Bosnian Serb wartime military chief Ratko Mladic, is a key condition for Serbia’s progress towards a membership of the EU.