SIPA blocked by armed RS police during arrest attempt

24/4/2025 6:09

Bosnia's state police,

SIPA, on Wednesday tried to arrest Serb separatist leader

Milorad Dodik who is wanted for attacking the constitutional

order but were stopped by his armed police forces, a SIPA

spokeswoman said.



The state court issued an arrest warrant for Dodik, the

president of Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic, and two of his

close allies after they ignored a summons in the investigation

of the separatist legislation they initiated and which has been

suspended by the constitutional court.



Despite the arrest warrant, Dodik continued with his

activities and traveled across the Serb-dominated region

protected by heavily armed members of the region's police

antiterrorist forces.



On Wednesday, he arrived in the town of East Sarajevo,

bordering the capital Sarajevo, where the State Investigation

and Protection Agency headquarters are located.



"The SIPA officers today tried to execute the court's order

and arrest Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik in East

Sarajevo," spokeswoman Jelena Miovcic told Reuters. "They talked

to the members of the RS police who warned them they will use

the force and so prevented them from executing the orders."



A Reuters reporter did not see any SIPA officers in front of

a government office in East Sarajevo, where Dodik arrived with

his entourage, only the members of the Serb Republic police.

Dodik initiated Bosnia's biggest political crisis since the end

of the country's war in the 1990s after he was sentenced in

February to one year in prison and banned from politics for six

years over defying rulings by the international envoy, whose

role is to prevent multi-ethnic Bosnia from slipping back into

conflict.



The dispute pits Dodik and his allies Russia and Serbia

against the United States and the European Union.



Last month, the court ordered an international arrest

warrant to be issued for Dodik and his aide after they went

abroad in defiance of an internal arrest warrant, but Interpol

declined its "red notice" request.



A long-time advocate of secession from Bosnia, Dodik had

initiated legislation barring the state judiciary and police

from operating in the Serb region, but Bosnia's constitutional

court temporarily suspended that.



The United States and the United Kingdom sanctioned Dodik

for violating the terms of a peace deal that ended the country's

1992-1995 war.

Earlier this month, Germany and Austria announced they will bar

Dodik and his two aides from their territories, accusing him of

threatening the security of his fragile country and the region.