Belgrade - Paramilitary fighters, footballers, family and admirers mourned the Serb warlord Arkan as a hero yesterday. A man described by a top Western official in Bosnia this week as "a psychopathic mass murderer" was painted by a commander of his paramilitary force as a brave and fearless defender of the Serb nation. "Muslim women kissed his hand when they saw him," Mr Borislav Pelevic, a leading member of Arkan's now disbanded Serb National Guard, told a ceremony in Belgrade's trade union headquarters.
Arkan, whose real name was Zeljko Raznatovic, was charged by the United Nations tribunal in 1997 with committing atrocities during the conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia. He was gunned down in a Belgrade hotel on Saturday.