The 59-year-old has been arrested and is detained at the State Court. He is accused of participating from May to October 1992 in the persecution of Croats and Bosniaks as part of a systematic campaign by Bosnian Serb paramilitaries and police aimed at ethnically cleansing the parts of Sarajevo under their control.
The indictment says that as a participant in a joint criminal enterprise, Vlaco was the warden of several detention camps in which civilians were killed and abused, including rape, and that apart from approving such grave breaches of humanitarian law, he also took part in the crimes.
An investigation established that several dozen prisoners of war in the camps under his supervision were killed when Serb troops used them as a human shield or as forced labour.
After the war, a number of the victims were found and exhumed, while a larger number of bodies are still being traced.
As many as 99 witnesses are expected to be questioned during the trial.