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A Bosnian court confirmed on Thursday that Interpol refused to issue an international request for the arrest of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, wanted nationally for allegedly flouting the country’s constitution.
“At this moment, the court can only confirm the information that the international arrest warrant has not entered into force,” the state court of Bosnia and Herzegovina said in a statement to AFP.
It added that information about the matter was confidential and the court could not communicate details about Interpol’s decision.
Dodik late Wednesday had told RTRS public television in the Bosnia Serb statelet he rules that Interpol had declined to issue the international request to its member countries, called a “red notice”.
He claimed Interpol refused because it deemed the Bosnian warrant to be politically motivated.
Dodik made the comment upon returning from Moscow, to where he had gone after a court in Bosnia’s capital of Sarajevo last week ordered his arrest over accusations he was making secessionist moves.
In the Russian capital, he was greeted by President Vladimir Putin.
Dodik said that Serbia had intervened with Interpol to prevent a “red notice” being issued for him, and for the speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament, Nenad Stevandic, also wanted by Bosnian justice.
The two men, along with the Serb statelet’s prime minister, Radovan Viskovic, are wanted by Bosnian prosecutors over accusations they are seeking to secede and are flouting Bosnia’s constitution.
AFP contacted Interpol, which is headquartered in France, but it declined to make any public comment on the matter.
Germany and Austria said on Thursday they will impose a travel ban on Dodik, Stevandic and Viskovic.
Since the end of its inter-ethnic war in the early 1990s, Bosnia remains split into two highly-autonomous halves — the Serbs’ Republika Srpska (RS) 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.
National authorities have not arrested the three Bosnian Serb officials because such an operation was deemed too risky. Dodik’s presidential palace has been guarded by armed local police.
Dodik, 66, has repeatedly refused to follow rulings from the international high representative who oversees the Bosnian peace deal.
A national court in February convicted him and sentenced him to one year in prison and a six-year ban on holding public office. Dodik rejects the ruling.
