Balkan war criminal discovered living in Surrey

Milan Spanovic, who fled to Britain in 1991, was caught when he was questioned for suspected shoplifting in Sutton.

A police desk officer typed his name into a database as a matter of routine and discovered that Spanovic, 43, had an international warrant out for his arrest.

He is said to have been a member of a Serbian parliamentary gang who carried out a raid on the village of Maja near Glina in the former Yugoslavia during the civil war.

The 40 gunmen looted property, burned a Catholic church and tortured a Croatian civilian, forcing the barrel of a gun in his mouth and threatening to kill him.

Spanovic is said to have told his victims he was helping expel every Croat in the country and was bringing Maja into the group's self-proclaimed breakaway Serb Republic of Krajina.

After the war, Spanovic was one of 19 men identified and indicted by the Croat government for the raid.

But the father-of-three managed to escape and fled to England, setting up home in a terrace property in Stoneleigh Road in the south London suburb.

A Croatian court found him guilty of the war crimes in his absence and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

Today, he will appear at Westminster magistrates court as Croatia seeks his extradition. He has insisted that he was not responsible for the atrocities in Maja and that he was never part of a terror squad.

His neighbours in the residential street have spoken of their horror that such a notorious figure was living among them.

Civil servant Sue Weatherburn, 39, said his family lived quietly and were very polite.

She said they rarely joined in with social activities within the community and had no obvious source of income.

"Ignorance is sometimes bliss," she said. "I'm not sure I wanted to know there was a war criminal living here."

Tara Jenkins, 37, added: "I didn't know anything about it. I'm pleased he has been arrested. If he is in custody I'm not too bothered now."

If Spanovic is extradited he will have the right, under Croat law, to ask for a new trial.

An official in Zagreb said: "We are very grateful for his capture, although it is true we did not have Carshalton on our radar as a possible hideout.

"We had an international warrant out for him but we never expected him to be living a quiet life in London."

Spanovic is thought to be the first Balkan war criminal to have been found in this country.