Spanish police have arrested a Serbian member of a gang of robbers known as the Pink Panthers, wanted for a multi-million-euro jewelry heist, authorities said on Wednesday.

The man, Borko Ilincic, 33, has been sentenced to life in jail in the United Arab Emirates for a ram-raid in a Dubai shopping mall in 2007, "one of the most famous robberies in history", Spanish police said in a statement.

Serbia's war crimes court on Tuesday sentenced nine Serbian members of a paramilitary force to up to 20 years in prison for killing at least 109 ethnic Albanians during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict.

The nine "committed murders, rapes and robberies in an extremely brutal way, with the main goal to spread fear among Albanian civilians in order to force them to leave their homes and flee to Albania", judge Snezana Nikolic Garotic said in her verdict.

More than 1,000 people were rescued by the army and emergency services on Saturday after being stranded in snow on a road linking Serbia and Hungary for some 15 hours.

More than 200 vehicles were caught by the weather and trapped for several hours from Friday evening in the region of Feketic, some 120 kilometers (74 miles) north of Belgrade.

Strong winds and snow drifts snarled traffic in Serbia Friday, prompting local officials to declare a state of emergency and deploy military helicopters to rescue stranded travelers.

Heavy trucks were banned from the roads in northern Vojvodina province and the border with neighboring Romania, Croatia and Hungary was closed to freight traffic.

President Tomislav Nikolic on Wednesday said Serbia will hold early parliamentary polls on March 16, as the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) seeks to capitalize on support after starting EU membership talks.

"I have just signed the decree to dissolve parliament, paving the way for parliamentary elections to be held on March 16," Nikolic said during a brief ceremony broadcast live on state television.

Serbia's government Tuesday urged President Tomislav Nikolic to dissolve parliament and call early elections for March 16, as the main party seeks to capitalize on support after starting EU accession talks.

A government statement called for an early vote -- two years before the parliament's mandate expires -- "in order to get larger support for the continuation of reforms and modernization of society."

A top Serb politician was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of war crimes allegedly committed during the 1990s war, his lawyer said.

Oliver Ivanovic, 60, was ordered detained for a month over crimes "which occurred in 1999 and in 2000 against Albanian victims", his lawyer Nebojsa Vlajic told Agence France Presse.

Serbia officially set off on a long march to be the European Union's 29th member, starting long and possibly fraught talks Tuesday to bring its laws into line with European standards.

"This is an historic day for Serbia," probably "the most important since World War II", said Prime Minister Ivica Dacic.

Serbian police on Tuesday said they had arrested two former intelligence officers suspected of involvement in the murder of journalist Slavko Curuvija, a fierce critic of the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

"Former senior officers of the State Security Service Ratko Romic and Milan Radonjic were arrested" in an ongoing investigation into the murder of Curuvija, a police spokeswoman told Agence France Presse providing no further details.

Four Bosnian Muslims were sentenced for war crimes on Monday over their role in a 1992 attack against a Serb village that left 16 civilians dead.

Judge Ljubomir Kitic sentenced the former soldiers to between nine and a half and 11 and a half years "for war crimes against the civilian population".