Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, and Nenad Stevandic, its parliament speaker, are reportedly accused of undermining Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitutional framework.
According to Serbia’s ‘Politika’ newspaper, Interpol is considering international arrest warrants for the president and speaker of Republika Srpska, a predominantly Serb region within Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The report states that President Milorad Dodik and Speaker Nenad Stevandic are accused of attacking the constitutional order and violating Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Criminal Code.
Politika reports that while Interpol’s Balkan office has distributed the arrest warrants to member states, the Interpol General Secretariat has not yet approved them.
Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided into two self-governing entities following a brutal civil war: the ethnically Serbian Republika Srpska and a federation governed by Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats, under the 1995 Dayton Agreement brokered by the US. The country has a three-member presidency composed of a Bosniak, a Serb, and a Croat.
Earlier in the month, Bosnian prosecutors issued arrest warrants for Dodik, Stevandic, and Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic, accusing them of launching an “attack on the constitutional order” by enacting laws that limit the authority of Bosnia’s state-level judiciary and law enforcement agencies.
Last month, a Sarajevo court sentenced Dodik to a year in prison for obstructing the decisions of Bosnia’s constitutional court and defying the authority of international envoy Christian Schmidt, who is German.
Dodik has maintained that the charges are politically motivated, stating he will reject the court’s decision and prevent its enforcement within Republika Srpska.
The charges against Dodik have also drawn criticism from neighboring Serbia. Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin asserted that Serbia would prevent the detention of Republika Srpska’s top officials and described Sarajevo’s actions as a “continuous attempt at revenge” against Dodik and the Serbian people.
Moscow has also condemned Dodik’s conviction, calling it an “absolutely political” decision by the Bosnia and Herzegovina judiciary based on a “pseudo-law” promoted by Schmidt.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that “These actions could lead to destabilization,” and stressed that such steps could have “very negative consequences not just for Bosnia and Herzegovina, but for the Balkans as a whole.”
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