Arrest warrant issued for Bosnian Serb leadership

Bosnian prosecutors feature issued check warrants for the chair, ground government minister, and parliament speaker of Republika Srpska, the predominantly-Serb region within Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are accused of having launched an “attack on the constitutional order” by enacting laws that restrict the operations of Bosnia’s state-level judiciary and law enforcement agencies.

Following a brutal civil war that pitted the former Yugoslav region’s ethno-religious groups against one another, 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.

As part of this arrangement, the country is ruled by a three-member presidency – a Bosniak, a Serb, and a Croat – and includes an autonomous district at a key crossroads.

The warrants were issued despite Banja Luka, the administrative center of Serb-majority Republika Srpska, not recognizing the authority of the Sarajevo-based Prosecutor’s Office.

The country’s Prosecutor’s Office issued the order after Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik, Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic and Parliament Speaker Nenad Stevandic failed to respond to two summonses for questioning, Serb Republic television reported, citing the regional government.

A Sarajevo-based court last month sentenced Dodik to one year in prison and barred him from holding presidential office for six years for obstructing decisions made by Bosnia’s constitutional court and defying the authority of international envoy Christian Schmidt. A German national, Schmidt was formally tasked with overseeing the implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.

Dodik himself did not attend his sentencing and announced plans for the Republika Srpska National Assembly to reject the court’s decision and prohibit the enforcement of any rulings made by Bosnia’s state judiciary within its territory.

Bosnian Serb lawmakers passed legislation that bans the central judiciary and police from operating within Republika Srpska. Bosnia’s Constitutional Court temporarily suspended the laws on March 6, pending a final ruling, but Dodik insisted that the new laws must be implemented.

Radovan Kovacevic, the spokesman for Dodik’s party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, denied that President Dodik or Republika Srpska had “attacked” Bosnia’s constitutional order.

“No one will arrest or can arrest the state leadership of Republika Srpska. Republika Srpska is not attacking the constitutional order; on the contrary, it is making decisions that it has the right to make, based on the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska,” Kovacevic said.

Commenting on the move, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin has asserted that Serbia will prevent the detention of Republika Srpska’s top officials and described the order by the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a continuous attempt at revenge against Dodik.

“This is revenge against Milorad Dodik and revenge against the Serbs,” Vulin claimed.

The Prosecutor’s Office has the authority to summon individuals for questioning up to two times. If they fail to comply, a detention order may be issued. If Dodik, Stevandic, and Vickovic resist detention, a national arrest warrant could follow.

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