Brutal revenge: In a high-security British jail, a Serbian warlord has his throat slashed by three Muslim inmates

By David Williams and Stephen Wright
Last updated at 1:17 AM on 8th May 2010

A former Serb general convicted of Europe's worst massacre since the Second World War had his neck slashed open by three Muslim prisoners in a British jail yesterday.

Radislav Krstic, 62, serving a 35-year sentence for war crimes, was in a critical condition in hospital after the attack at top security Wakefield Prison.

The Serbs were the deadly enemies of Bosnian Muslims during the Yugoslav civil war in the 1990s. At least one of Krstic's attackers is said to be a Bosnian Muslim.

The incident is a huge embarrassment to prison bosses because Krstic is regarded as one of Britain's most sensitive and high-profile inmates.

It is almost certain to be raised at diplomatic level and questions will be asked about how the suspects were able to attack him.

He was convicted for his part in the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys who had been rounded up in the UN's supposedly safe haven of Srebrenica in July 1995.

At the time he was one of the most powerful men in the Bosnian Serb army, second only to General Ratko Mladic, who is still on the run from war crimes investigators.

He was arrested in a daring joint SAS and U.S. Navy SEAL snatch in Bosnia in December 1998.

In 2001 he became the first man to be convicted of genocide by the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague and was sentenced to 46 years in prison.

This was overturned on appeal and replaced by a 35-year sentence for aiding and abetting genocide.

Under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Britain is obliged to take a share of prisoners convicted at the tribunal.

Among Bosnian Muslims, Krstic, who is married with a daughter, remains a figure of hatred, with the families of many of his victims swearing revenge.

Retribution appears to have come when he was attacked in the maximum security area of Wakefield while in his cell - D320.

He was slashed using a homemade weapon - believed to be a razorblade embedded in a toothbrush.

Last night it emerged that one of his suspected assailants was serving life for the torture and murder of a girl in a suburban park in 2005.

He is Indrit Krasniqi, 22, of Chiswick, West London, convicted in 2006 of the gang murder of Mary-Ann Leneghan, 16, in Reading.

Krstic was found by prison officers on the floor in a pool of blood at 11am. One of the cuts narrowly missed a major artery. He had also been beaten around the head and body.

He was unconscious when he was taken to nearby Pinderfields Hospital. An insider said: 'At first it was thought that Krstic was dead because of all of the blood.

'It was a well-planned and executed ambush. The view is that it was an act of revenge.'

Last night Krstic, although critically ill, was not said to be in a life-threatening condition.

The jail was in 'lockdown' as staff searched for the weapon used in the assault. 

The attack comes at a time when former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is standing trial at the Hague charged with war crimes relating to Srebrenica and other atrocities. 

Outraged officials in the city of Banja Luka, the centre of Bosnian Serb power, said last night that the 'whole position' of the War Crimes Tribunal would be further undermined if those convicted 'couldn't even by protected in a prison'.

'We should know whether this was allowed to happen... whether a blind eye was turned,' one said.