12-03-2025
Bosnia police ordered to bring in Serb leader Milorad Dodik
Bosnia's prosecutors on Wednesday ordered federal police to bring in ethnic Serb leader Milorad Dodik for questioning as part of an investigation into his alleged flouting of the country's constitution.
Tensions have soared in the divided Balkan country since Dodik was convicted last month for defying Christian Schmidt, the international envoy charged with overseeing the peace accords that ended Bosnia's 1990s war.
Dodik, who leads Bosnia's Republika Srpska (RS) statelet, has remained unrepentant after the conviction and helped push through laws forbidding federal police and judiciary from entering Bosnia's Serb entity.
The laws were later struck down by the constitutional court.
Last week, he ignored a summons from Bosnia's chief prosecutor for allegedly trying to undermine the constitution. And last month he further ratcheted up tensions by calling on ethnic Serbs to quit the federal police force and courts and join the RS government instead.
Federal police "received a request for assistance" to execute the orders of the prosecutor's office to bring in Dodik for questioning, Jelena Miovcic, a spokesperson for the police force, told AFP on Wednesday.
The request also called for other top leaders from the RS to be brought in for questioning as well.
Since the end of Bosnia's inter-ethnic war in the 1990s, the country has consisted of two autonomous halves -- the Serb-dominated RS and a Muslim-Croat region.
- EU troops brought in -
The two entities have their own governments and parliaments and are linked by weak central institutions.
Bosnia's divided politics and fragile, post-war institutions have faced increasing uncertainty amid the unfolding crisis.
The latest move from prosecutors comes as EU military reinforcements began arriving in Bosnia on Tuesday.
Last Friday, the European Union Force (EUFOR) announced a "temporary increase" in the number of troops in Bosnia as a "proactive measure".
Earlier this week, NATO chief Mark Rutte also flew to Sarajevo seeking to bolster support for the country's embattled government, saying the alliance will not allow a "security vacuum to emerge".
For years, Dodik has pursued a separatist agenda, while repeatedly threatening to pull the Serb statelet out of Bosnia's central institutions -- including its army, judiciary and tax system, which has led to sanctions from the United States.
The RS leader had already pushed through two earlier laws that refused to recognise decisions made by the Schmidt and Bosnia's constitutional court.
That led to his conviction last month. He was sentenced to a year in prison and six-year ban from office.
