Bosnia police ordered to bring in Serb leader 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 in retaliation.

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.

He also further ratcheted up tensions by calling on ethnic Serbs last Friday 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.

Dodik later said he had no intention of responding to the latest order.

"Let's see how they are going to try to arrest us," said Dodik during a news conference in the RS capital Banja Luka on Wednesday afternoon.

"We are not worried, we are determined," he added, while suggesting he was still open for negotiations.

'Serious danger' 
 

With the pressuring mounting, RS officials have closed ranks behind Dodik.

"No one will be arrested", said RS interior minister Sinisa Karan.

"The duty of the ministry of the interior is to protect the constitutional order, the representatives of all institutions, and all citizens," Karan added, during an interview with a local broadcaster.

"This duty will be fully exercised."

Dodik's advisor Radovan Kovacevic also warned that RS authorities would respond "ferociously" to "any form of radicalisation coming from Sarajevo".

Tensions were also growing over a new draft constitution the RS parliament is debating that could see the statelet pull even further away from Bosnia's national government.

Schmidt's office, in a statement posted on X, warned that the debate over the draft text represented a "serious danger" to Bosnia's institutions.

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.

The two entities have their own governments and parliaments and are linked by weak central institutions.

 EU troops deployed  

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. He said the alliance would not allow a "security vacuum to emerge" in Bosnia.

For years, Dodik has pursued a separatist agenda, 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, when he was sentenced to a year in prison anda six-year ban from office.