Man not guilty of war crimes - wife

Milorad Pejic, who holds a British passport, is accused of involvement in the deaths of more than 200 people in a small town in Croatia.

It is claimed Pejic, who has lived in Corby, Northamptonshire, for many years, was a member of the Serbian force that carried out the Ovcara farm massacre in 1991. He was detained when he returned to Belgrade last week.

Talking to reporters outside Mr Pejic's terraced home near the centre of Corby, his wife Loubica Dokic said her husband was innocent of any crime.

Speaking through an interpreter, the 38-year-old mother said: "He just went back to visit his mum. There is no chance of him being guilty of anything because he is such a good father, such a good husband and such a good guy."

Family friend Slobodan Bozic said Mrs Dokic was 100% certain that her husband, who worked at a warehouse in Corby, would be proved innocent.

"Milorad is a friend of mine for the last five or six years," Mr Bozic said. "He's a man who has never done anything bad to anybody. He is in custody in Serbia and we have not been able to speak to him."

Mr Bozic added that the Serbian community in the local area, estimated to number at least 100 families, was fully supportive of Mr Pejic, who has two sons, aged eight and 14, and who has lived in Britain since 1999.

A Foreign Office spokesman said earlier: "We are aware of his arrest and we are monitoring the situation."

As Serbian troops bombarded Vukovar, dubbed "Croatia's Stalingrad" because of the devastation wrought on it in the attack, prisoners of war sought refuge in a hospital. When the city fell, Serbian troops seized the prisoners. At least 200 were taken to a pig farm in Ovcara and beaten, tortured and then killed. Their bodies were found in mass graves.