A French journalist has been held in jail in the Netherlands over the holiday weekend after being arrested at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague for contempt of court, the Volkskrant says on Tuesday.

Florence Hartmann, a former Le Monde correspondent, was arrested last week after allegedly failing to pay a fine of €7,000. She was fined by the UN court after she revealed in a book that the tribunal had withheld information on the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 from the international court of justice, which is also located in The Hague.

The fine was later converted to seven days in jail after the tribunal said it had not been paid.

According to the Guardian, Hartmann was approached by UN police outside the tribunal on Thursday, where people were waiting for the Radovan Karadzic verdict.

‘The demonstrators attempted to close ranks around her to prevent her being detained, but later police managed to separate her, bring her into the tribunal building and drag her through the lobby as she shouted protests against her treatment,’ the Guardian said.

Her lawyer, Guénaël Mettraux, told the paper: ‘Florence is in solitary isolation, totally segregated on what is called suicide watch, which in practice means that the light is on 24 hours a day and she is checked on every 15 minutes.’

A spokesman for the tribunal told broadcaster Nos on Tuesday Hartmann is not being held in solitary confinement and is alone because she is the only female prisoner. Her treatment is in line with international standards, the spokesman said.