Bosnia Serb Army Chief Seized

Austrian police seized the head of the Bosnian Serb army Wednesday, the highest ranking officer yet detained on behalf of U.N. prosecutors. General Momir Talic, chief of staff of the Bosnian Serb army, is charged with directing brutal oppression of Muslims and Croats in 1992.

Talic commanded troops in the Krajina region of northwestern Bosnia during the 1992-1995 conflict and was a member of wartime military chief Ratko Mladic's inner circle.

Talic, in Vienna for a military conference organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, was unaware that his name appeared on one of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia's Â"sealedÂ" indictments.

Police arrested him in Vienna's National Defense Academy where a meeting was being held aimed at integrating Bosnian Serb forces and forces from the Muslim-Croat federation into a national army.

During BosniaÂ's civil war, Talic sat on one of many committees allegedly set up by Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to Â"ethnically cleanseÂ" Serb-held areas.

News of Talic's detention sparked immediate protests in the Bosnian Serb republic of Srpska. Vice President Mirko Sarovic condemned the action and called it Â"humiliating.Â"

U.N. Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour said she had charged Talic in March alongside former Bosnian Serb deputy prime minister Radoslav Brdjanin, who was snatched by NATO-led SFOR troops in Bosnia in July. Both men are accused of persecuting and expelling over 100,000 non-Serbs from the Prijedor region of northwestern Bosnia.

Tribunal prosecutors allege that Serb forces under the command of Talic and Brdjanin terrorized Muslims and Croats into fleeing areas of Bosnia, and that those who didn't leave were driven out by force. Hundreds were killed.

If convicted, Talic faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic and his military chief Mladic, who have also been indicted, are still at large.

Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic named Talic army chief in February 1998.

Over 100,000 non-Serbs were deported and many transferred to detention camps. At camps such as Omarska and Trnopolje, prisoners were killed, tortured and subjected to physical and psychological maltreatment. At some, female inmates were sexually assaulted and raped, prosecutors allege.

Amor Masovic, head of the Muslim Commission for Missing Persons, said his commission discovered the largest number of Bosnia's mass graves in Krajina in northwest Bosnia, an area controlled by Talic during the war.

More from CBS News