Prosecutors order detention of three top Bosnian Serb officials over alleged attack on constitutional order.
The Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office has ordered police to arrest Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and two of his aides for what it called an attack on the constitutional order.
The decision taken on Wednesday comes after Dodik, along with Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic and Parliament Speaker Nenad Stevandic, failed to answer two summons for questioning.
It also follows a separate case in which Dodik was sentenced to a year in jail and banned from public office for defying the rulings of Christian Schmidt, the international envoy charged with overseeing the peace accords that ended Bosnia’s war in the 1990s.
Lawmakers are investigating Dodik, the nationalist president of Bosnia’s Serb-majority entity, Republika Srpska (RS), for barring the state judiciary and police from the region following his sentencing. These laws were later struck down by Bosnia’s top court.
Russian-backed Dodik has repeatedly said he does not recognise the Bosnian prosecution office and would not go to Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, for questioning.
Prosecutors have sought the help of Bosnia’s State Investigation and Protection Agency in the arrest. It was not clear if the plan was to detain Dodik or to accompany him to answer the summons.
In Banja Luka, the northwestern town that is the seat of the Republika Srpska, reports said police had deployed around the parliament building ahead of a session.
Tensions building
Separately on Wednesday, the RS assembly debated a new draft constitution that would advance the separation process by creating an army and allowing the entity to join a union with neighbouring countries.
Dodik’s moves, which have been criticised by the United States and the European Union, are seen as part of escalating efforts to break the RS territory away from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
RS is one of two regions created under the US-brokered Dayton Peace Agreement to end the 1992-1995 war that killed more than 100,000 people. The other region is the Federation entity, where most Bosniaks and Croats live. The two are linked by a fragile central government in a state supervised by an international authority to stop it from slipping back into conflict.
Earlier this week, NATO chief Mark Rutte flew to Sarajevo seeking to bolster support for the country’s embattled government, saying the alliance will not allow a “security vacuum to emerge”.
Meanwhile, Russian news agency TASS reported on Wednesday that Dodik is planning a high-level meeting with Russian officials in the coming days.