The veteran BBC journalist Martin Bell has been recalling his encounters with Arkan, the Serbian paramilitary leader and gangster who was assassinated in the lobby of a Belgrade hotel at the weekend.

Mr Bell, now an independent member of the UK parliament, reported extensively from the Balkans during the war in Croatia and then in Bosnia.

He says that in spite of Arkan's reputation as "killer and a murderer" he regarded the suspected war criminal as "a friend" - sometimes frightening and sometimes charming.

"I think it depends on how you define friendship," he told the BBC's Today programme.

"I don't think you necessarily have to feel moral approval of people whose company you enjoy."

"He had a great surface charm" Mr Bell said, "he had a raw military courage.

"Of course, the man's a killer, but I need access and he provided access so over the years we he had a pretty good working relationship."

Folk hero

Arkan, he said, portrayed himself as a nationalist and orthodox Christian, occasionally producing a huge crucifix that he would wave about whilst denouncing Yugoslavia's former communist leadership.

To many Serbs Arkan was and remains a folk hero of the Serbian nation.

As to who could have been behind the weekend's shooting, Mr Bell said that Arkan certainly knew a lot about alleged Serb atrocities and where the bodies of their victims were buried.

With a series indictments being issued by the War Crimes Tribunal against senior members of the Serbian leadership Mr Bell says that Arkan's knowledge would have become increasingly dangerous.

"I always thought that of all the people I knew, [Arkan] was the one least likely to die in his bed."