Sarajevo/Banja Luka  - Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik welcomed Tuesday the arrest of the most wanted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, saying Karadzic's arrest in Belgrade proved that he was not in the Srpska Republic, the Bosnian Serb entity.

"All those who were claiming for years that Karadzic was here, pressing and punishing the Srpska Republic for not arresting him, could see now that he could not be arrested here as he was not in here," Dodik said in Banja Luka.

He reiterated that all those indicted for war crimes before The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) should face justice.

Mladen Bosic, president of the nationalist Serb Democratic Party (SDS) established by Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic himself some 18 years ago, expressed his disappointment with Karadzic's arrest, accusing the new Serbian government of apprehending the former SDS leader.

"It is obvious that this is the result or consequence of the establishment of new authorities in Serbia. We are all surprised," said Bosic.

He also criticized the work of the ICTY, claiming the UN War Crimes Tribunal was not a court of justice, but rather a political institution.

Bosnian Muslim authorities in Sarajevo welcomed Karadzic's arrest, saying a new future for Bosnia-Herzegovina was now open.

"This is at least some satisfaction for the families of the victims of the war," the Chairman of Bosnia's tripartite state Presidency Haris Silajdzic said in Sarajevo.

Although he had been skeptical about the prospects for Karadzic's arrest, Silajdzic said that his belief in justice has been restored.

His Croat colleague in the Presidency, Zeljko Komsic, said: "This is a great day for Bosnia-Herzegovina."

Both Silajdzic and Komsic warned at the same time that justice would not be completely served until Karadzic's closest associate, his army commander Ratko Mladic, is also arrested.

The action "proves that justice reaches everyone," said Miroslav Lajcak, international administrator and EU special representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"I still cannot believe that Karadzic was arrested. I keep asking myself could that be true?" Hajra Catic, president of the Srebrenica Mothers' Association, said.

"After all those horrors, so much evil in Srebrenica, it was the time for him to be put behind bars," she said.

The ICTY indicted Radovan Karadzic for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and severe breaches of the Geneva Conventions during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The charges include the massacre in the former eastern Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serb troops, allegedly following Karadzic's orders, massacred up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and expelled more than 30,000 Muslim women, children and elderly from their homes after capturing the area on July 11, 1995. (dpa)