International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) fugitive Ratko Mladic was arrested in Lazarevo, a village near Zrenjanin, northern Serbia, in the house of his relative B.M., 59, Tanjug was told by an eyewitness who wanted to stay anonymous.

According to Tanjug's correspondent, Mladic's first neighbor said that he was in the house of the Mladic family at the moment of the arrest operation and that he helped the ICTY indictee to dress up.

Inhabitants of Lazarevo said that security forces broke into the house of B.M., where he used to live alone, around 5.30 a.m.

Few dozen inhabitants of Lazarevo do not allow journalists to approach the house in which Mladic was allegedly arrested blocking the road with a trailer.

There are police officers in the village.

According to eyewitnesses, who also wanted to stay anonymous, police forces searched three more houses of immigrants from Bosnia-Herzegovina on Thursday morning.

Inhabitants of Lazarevo, a village near Zrenjanin, Vojvodina, are surprised to hear reports by some media that Ratko Mladic, an International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) fugitive, was arrested Thursday in their village, as nobody was aware of his presence there, Chairman of the council of the Lazarevo local community Radmilo Stanisic said Thursday.

He told Tanjug that he had not been aware that Mladic had been present in their village, adding that a number of families with the same surname lived in Lazarevo, having moved there from Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1945.

He adds that no family in Lazarevo signs Komadic, allegedly Mladic's alias, as their last name.