Milorad Dodik, the president of the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said on Wednesday that he had been informed that INTERPOL had not accepted the Bosnian court's request to issue international arrest warrants against him and Nenad Stevandic, the speaker of the People's Assembly of Republika Srpska.
Dodik wrote on X that he was notified by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, whom he said he thanks along with the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban.
"President Aleksandar Vučić just called me to tell me that he received a notification from the Interpol Directorate that Serbia's complaint had been accepted and that Interpol has rejected the request of the Bosnian Court to issue a red notice for Stevandic and me," Dodik wrote on X.
The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina requested on March 27 international arrest warrants, through INTEPOL, for the two leaders of Republika Srpska.
The request for international arrest warrants was made after they failed to respond to a summons from the Bosnian General Prosecutor's Office on suspicion of violating the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Dodik, president of Republika Srpska, made the announcement on the day he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Later, Dodik said that he had returned to Bosnia and was in Banja Luka.
Dodik, who faces a national arrest warrant, had left Bosnia on March 24 under unclear circumstances for Serbia, from where he had visited Israel and then Moscow.
On Tuesday, Serbia's acting Minister of Internal Affairs, Ivica Dacic, said that his country's engagement has prevented the execution of arrest warrants for Dodik and Stevandic.
Serbia had sent a note of protest to INTERPOL regarding the arrest warrants for Dodik and Stevandic, saying that they violate an article of the statute that stipulates that any action if it has a political, military, religious or racial background is strictly prohibited.
Dacic had previously said that Dodik and Stevandic are citizens of Serbia and that the international arrest warrants that Bosnia was referring to did not constitute grounds for action, as they had not gone through the verification process to see if the conditions were met.
The Bosnian court requested international arrest warrants for two senior Republika Srpska officials who fled Bosnia, evading legally prescribed border control procedures, at a time when a national arrest warrant had been issued against them.
Republika Srpska passed a draft of a new constitution in March, which would define the entity as a state of the Serbian people, grant it the right to self-determination, and establish its own army.
All of this is in direct contradiction to the Bosnian Constitution and the Dayton Peace Agreement, which defined Republika Srpska as one of Bosnia's two entities.
During his term as president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik has faced criticism for authoritarian tendencies, undermining democratic institutions and creating a culture of political patronage. /REL (A2 Televizion)
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