BELGRADE - Dozens of Serb ultra-nationalists clashed with police in Belgrade last night after a rally in support of war crimes suspect and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was captured last week after 12 years on the run.
Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters, who were smashing shop windows and throwing stones and flaming bottles at the police.
Thousands had converged on Belgrade earlier from all over Serbia and Bosnia in an attempt to challenge the new pro-western government of President Boris Tadic and try to block the handover of Karadzic to the war crimes tribunal at The Hague.
With tension in Belgrade at its highest since mobs attacked the US embassy in February after Kosovo's secession, the government, led by prime minister Mirko Cvetkovic, was braced for trouble after the arrest on charges of genocide and war crimes of Karadzic.
But while the US embassy had predicted up to 100,000 protesters would take part in the pro-Karadzic protests, the turnout last night was much lower than expected.
The lukewarm response to the calls for protest from the main opposition Radicals Party suggested that the hardliners who have dominated Serbia for the past 20 years are a fading force.
The rally took place only hours after Bosnia's war crimes court sentenced seven Bosnian Serbs to prison terms ranging from 38 to 42 years for taking part in the mass killing of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1995. Their trial had lasted two years.
"They killed several hundred Bosniaks [Bosnian Muslims] from Srebrenica," judge Hilmo Vucinic said. - (Guardian service, Reuters)