THE HAGUE, April 24 (Reuter) - The United Nations criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said on Monday it would name Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic as a war crimes suspect.

A tribunal spokesman said Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic would also be named as a war crimes suspect at a press conference later in the day.

"Karadzic and Mladic will be named as suspects but they have not yet been indicted," tribunal spokesman Christian Chartier said. Further details would be given at a news conference scheduled to start at 1015 GMT, he added.

The tribunal, which expects to start holding trials in the coming weeks, is the first body of its kind since the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials after World War Two.

Within the next few days the tribunal is expected to take custody of its first war crimes suspect, Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic, who is charged with murdering, raping, beating and torturing Moslems and Croats in northwest Bosnia in 1992.

Tadic is expected to be handed over to the tribunal by Germany where he was arrested early last year.