Bulgarian authorities have arrested a visiting Serb officer convicted of war crimes by Croatia six years ago, police said Wednesday in Sofia. The interior ministry's chief secretary Bojko Borisov told Bulgarian broadcaster NTV that Colonel Cedomir Brankovic was arrested on the basis of an Interpol arrest warrant issued in August 1999. Brankovic arrived in Bulgaria with a military delegation from Serbia and Montenegro, Borisov said, adding Serb diplomats were contacted in advance to "avoid a diplomatic scandal", DPA reported. A defence ministry official in Belgrade confirmed that Brankovic was a member of a delegation discussing the conversion of weapons to NATO standards. Brankovic is indicted for allegedly ordering the former Yugoslav army 265. Motorized Brigade to attack villages in Croatian Slavonia, the Croatian news agency HINA said, quoting the interior and justice ministries. Along with 31 other suspects, civilian and economic buldings were damaged in the attacks, several churches were mined and 13 people were killed.
