Prosecutors Arrest Bosnian Leader Milorad Dodik For Ignoring Court Calls

JAKARTA - The Bosnian state prosecutor ordered the arrest of the Russian-backed Serbian leader Milorad Dodik and his aides for ignoring court calls.

The decision came two weeks after a separate case in which Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison for opposing the international peace envoy's ruling, a spokesman for the state security agency, SIPA said.

As reported by Reuters on Wednesday, March 12, prosecutors have requested assistance from the Bosnian State Investigation and Protection Agency (SPA) in the arrest, which came after Dodik and his aides ignored a court summons.

It is unclear whether the plan is to detain Dodik or accompany him to fulfill the summons.

The state prosecutor's office is investigating Dodik, the pro-Russian nationalist president of the Bosnian Republic of Serbia, for what he described as an attack on constitutional order after he initiated the enactment of a law banning the state's judiciary and police from the region after he was sentenced.

"We have received requests from Bosnian court police and Herzegovina to help them," said SIPA spokesman Jelena Miovcic.

Serbian Republic television quoted the local government as reporting that state prosecutors had also ordered the arrest of Serbian Republic Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic and regional parliamentary president Nenad Stevandic for ignoring court summons in the case of assault on constitutional order.

The Republic of Serbia is one of two regions set up to end the 1992-5 war that killed more than 1,000,000 people in multiethnic Bosnia.

They are linked by a weak central government in a country supervised by international authorities to prevent it from falling into conflict again.