Bosnia court issues international arrest warrant for Serb leader visiting Israel

A court in Bosnia has issued an international arrest warrant for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik who is currently in Israel, accusing him of undermining the constitutional order and fleeing abroad in defiance, the court announced yesterday according to Reuters.

Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s Serb Republic region, triggered the gravest crisis since a 1990s war after being sentenced to a year in jail and banned from politics for six years for ignoring rulings by an international peace envoy.

Dodik, the pro-Russian long-time advocate of secession from Bosnia, had initiated legislation barring the state judiciary and police from operating in the Serb region, but Bosnia’s constitutional court temporarily suspended that.

Defying an internal arrest warrant, he crossed into neighbouring Serbia earlier this week then travelled to Israel for a conference on anti-Semitism which was being held in Jerusalem yesterday.

Bosnia’s state court said an international warrant was also issued for Nenad Stevandic, speaker of the Serb Republic parliament, who had travelled to Serbia though he is now back in Bosnia. The warrants are with Interpol, the court said.

Dodik says the accusations against him are meaningless as they are politically motivated.

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