A Serbian prosecutor said yesterday that he expects the quick arrest of top war-crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic, but predicted the military commander is not hiding in disguise like Radovan Karadzic was.

Vladimir Vukcevic, who heads the Serbian government's team in charge of capturing war crimes suspects, said Mladic's arrest may come "soon" and added that he believes the general is hiding in Serbia.

"The search for Mladic is going well," said Vukcevic, without revealing details of the hunt. Mladic and polit-ical leader Karadzic have been charged by the UN tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, with genocide and crimes against humanity for allegedly orchestrating the 1995 massacre of 8000 Muslim boys and men from Srebrenica and the armed siege of Sarajevo during the three-year war which started in 1992.

Vukcevic said he does not believe Mladic has changed his image while in hiding, unlike Karadzic who was arrested last month with long hair and a beard and dressed as a new-age guru.

"The two have completely different personalities," said Vukcevic. "Mladic may have had a plastic surgery, but he is not hiding like Karadzic.

"Karadzic's change of identity was astonishing," Vukcevic said. "He not only changed his image, but also the way he walked and talked."

The UN war crimes prosecutors believe Mladic, who is considered the architect of the Srebrenica massacre, is hiding in Belgrade under the protection of his Bosnian Serb comrades-in-arms. He was last seen in the Serbian capital in 2003.

Vukcevic said he saw Karadzic while he was in custody in Belgrade after the arrest in July before he was extradited to The Hague tribunal.

"He walked slowly, like a zombie or a guru," Vukcevic said. "But, when he cut his hair and the beard, he started walking quickly, like old Karadzic. That was the disguise."

Karadzic is expected to enter his plea in front of the UN war-crimes judges in The Hague today.

"Karadzic likes public appearances. In The Hague, he'll be like a fish in the water, like Milosevic," said Vukcevic, referring to the ex-Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic who died of a heart attack in his UN prison cell in March 2006.