She said her world collapsed when she discovered the man whom she befriended and respected was the war crimes fugitive.

'It was a terrifying shock,' said Ms Mila Cicak. 'I'm the one in prison now, except there are no bars on my cell.'

The 53-year-old single mother recounted last Saturday what she called the 'personal hell' she has been going through, since the Serbian authorities announced the capture of Karadzic on Monday and made public his cover as a self-styled healer - Dr Dragan David Dabic.

A photograph of Ms Cicak with the white-haired and bearded Dabic surfaced on the front pages of local Serbian newspapers - and prompted a frenzied media hunt for the woman dubbed his mistress.

She has been hounded by photographers and could not sleep, eat, think or leave her home, except to briefly walk her dog in the garden, she said. But then, exhaustion finally gave way to anger, and now she plans to sue the media for libel.

'Some have alleged that I hid Karadzic in my apartment, that I'm an accomplice to a war criminal,' said Ms Cicak, adding: 'I'm an innocent victim, being used to discredit this man.'

Ms Cicak said she could never put her 26-year-old son in harm's way through a voluntary association with a war crimes suspect.

Karadzic, accused of masterminding the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war, has been in hiding under the false identity of a health guru for the past 13 years.

Ms Cicak met him at a public lecture on alternative medicine last year and said she 'instantly became interested' in Dr Dabic.

When he introduced her to the 'quantum energy' procedure he was practising, she began working with him.

Their friendship deepened over time, she said. 'But we were never lovers, there was no romantic involvement between us.'

Karadzic's false identity of alternate healer had fooled many. He had even travelled to Austria, Russia and Italy to 'cure' many wealthy exiled Serbs, media reports have said.

Austrian daily Kurier said he used the name 'Pera' while in their country and was considered very 'haughty'.

Currently in a Belgrade prison, Karadzic is awaiting extradition to appear before the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, but his lawyer said he is unlikely to be transferred before the middle of the week.

Thousands of Karadzic's supporters protested against his arrest in Bosnian Serb cities last Saturday.

ASSOCIATED PRESS