Republika Srpska’s Milorad Dodik and Nenad Stevandic have reportedly been accused of violating the constitutional order in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Interpol has reportedly issued international arrest warrants for the president and the parliament speaker of Republika Srpska – a Serb-majority region within Bosnia and Herzegovina – the Serbian ‘Politika’ newspaper reported on Thursday.
According to the outlet, President Milorad Dodik and Speaker Nenad Stevandic have been accused of attacking the constitutional order and violating the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
While the arrest warrants have been distributed to Interpol member states by the organisation’s Balkan office, they have not been approved by the Interpol General Secretariat, Politika noted.
Following a brutal civil war Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided into two self-governing entities, the ethnically Serbian Republika Srpska and a federation run by Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats, under the US-brokered 1995 Dayton Agreement. The country is ruled by a three-member presidency – a Bosniak, a Serb, and a Croat.
Earlier this month, Bosnian prosecutors issued arrest warrants for Dodik, Stevandic as well as Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic, accusing them of launching an “attack on the constitutional order” by enacting laws that restrict the operations of Bosnia’s state-level judiciary and law enforcement agencies.
A Sarajevo-based court sentenced Dodik to one year in prison last month for obstructing decisions made by Bosnia’s constitutional court and defying the authority of international envoy, German national Christian Schmidt.
Dodik has claimed that the charges against him are politically motivated and said he would reject the court’s decision and prohibit the enforcement of its rulings on the territory of Republika Srpska.
The cases against Dodik have also sparked a backlash in neighboring Serbia, whose Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin asserted that Belgrade would prevent the detention of Republika Srpska’s top officials and described Sarajevo’s moves as a “continuous attempt at revenge” against Dodik and the Serbian people.
Moscow has also denounced Dodik’s conviction, calling it an “absolutely political” decision by the Bosnia and Herzegovina judiciary based on a “pseudo-law” pushed through by Schmidt.
“These actions could lead to destabilization,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned, stressing that such steps could have “very negative consequences not just for Bosnia and Herzegovina, but for the Balkans as a whole.”
