MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia on Friday criticized the arrest by NATO-led troops of a Serb general accused of war

crimes, saying the case should have been handled without NATO interference.

Arrests and trials of any suspects accused of war crimes in Bosnia should be settled ``only via direct cooperation

between the Bosnian sides themselves and the International Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia,'' the Russian Foreign

Ministry said in a statement quoted by the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies.

Gen. Radislav Krstic was seized by U.S. members of the NATO peacekeeping force on Wednesday. He is the most

senior Serb military officer arrested so far in the effort to bring to trial Bosnians accused of war crimes.

A U.N. indictment said Krstic commanded the soldiers who executed thousands of Muslims and dumped them in

mass graves.

Krstic arrived late Thursday in The Hague, where the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal will try him for genocide, war

crimes, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

The U.N. indictment alleges that troops under Krstic's command committed offenses after the rebel Serb takeover of

the U.N. safe haven of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia in July 1995.

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