Bosnia says Interpol refused 'red notice' appeal for wanted leader Dodik
Interpol has confirmed its refusal to issue a notice to detain Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, who is wanted by Bosnia's federal authorities on secession charges, a court said on Wednesday.
The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina said Interpol "has not accepted a request to revise its decision about the issue of an arrest warrant" against Dodik, president of the Bosnian Serb statelet of Republika Srpska, and RS parliament speaker Nenad Stevandic.
Interpol declined a request to comment.
Since the end of its bloody inter-ethnic war in 1995, Bosnia has been split between two autonomous halves -- the Serbs' Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat Federation.
Each has its own government and parliament, with only weak central institutions binding the country of 3.5 million people together.
Dodik, 66, and Stevandic, 58, as well as RS prime minister Radovan Viskovic, 61, are wanted for questioning on suspicion of "attacking the constitutional order" in Bosnia.
Interpol earlier this month rejected a Bosnian request to issue a "red notice," which asks law enforcement bodies worldwide to provisionally detain a wanted person pending extradition.
Dodik, who has led the RS since 2006, was sentenced to one year in prison and banned from holding political office for six in February for failing to comply with decisions of the international high representative who oversees the peace accord in Bosnia.
He rejected the trial as "political" and responded by banning the federal police and judiciary from operating in the Serb statelet.
Federal prosecutors deemed his actions secessionist and opened an investigation, but the three men have not been arrested because of the risk of destabilising the fragile Balkan nation.
Dodik and Stevandic both travelled abroad after an arrest warrant was issued on March 18, prompting the Bosnian courts to contact Interpol.
The RS leader has been in Serbia, Israel and Russia in recent weeks, and is expected to be in Moscow again on May 9 for a parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
Bosnia's federal police attempted to question him last week when he was in east Sarajevo, which is part of the Serb statelet, but were blocked by Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry forces.
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