Updated

Kosovo police and a human rights body say a former Serb general suspected of war crimes against ethnic Albanian civilians has been detained.

Police on Friday said Milovan Bojovic was arrested a day earlier after illegally crossing into Kosovo at the Merdare border point.

Behxhet Shala of the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms, based in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, told The Associated Press by telephone that Bojovic is suspected of a number of deaths in Kosovo, "crimes that have remained unpunished."

In 1999, NATO bombing stopped Serbia's bloody crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists. Bojovic was the military commander in Pristina at the time.

In 2008 Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, which has never recognized it.