Goran Hadzic was long eclipsed by the other big names on the most wanted list, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who face even more serious charges from the Bosnian war.
But with the arrest of Karadzic in 2008 and Mladic in May this year, Goran Hadzic suddenly became the number one target.
State resources were redirected towards his capture; Serbia was determined that Hadzic would not be the one that got away.
President Tadic said that pressure from the EU did not drive the move. But he will now expect to be rewarded by Brussels.
Serbia will hope to receive EU candidate status and a start date for accession talks. And for this nation, desperate to move on from the 1990s, it is another big step towards its rehabilitation.
Mark Lowen BBC News, Belgrade