A prominent Croatian Serb has been found hanged in a detention centre in the Hague, days after being tried by the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal over a massacre in the Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991.

The man, Slavko Dokmanovic -- who was mayor of Vukovar -- was accused of overseeing the eviction of at least two-hundred men, mostly Croats, who'd been sheltering in Vukovar hospital.

They were then killed by rebel Serbs, protected by the Federal Yugoslav Army.

A verdict was expected next month.