The RS government plane returned to Banja Luka a little later and Dodik is believed not to have been on board, but to have remained in Belgrade. He doesn’t have to worry about accommodation because he has a 400-square-meter villa in the elite Belgrade neighborhood of Dedinje, for which he officially paid 750 euros, but it is questionable where he got so much money, so it is the subject of an investigation.
Milorad Dodik, the separatist president of Republika Srpska (RS), is likely hiding in Belgrade, waiting to see if Interpol will issue an arrest warrant against him, requested by the court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A domestic arrest warrant is currently in force against Dodik for violating the constitutional order, but the court has requested an international arrest warrant from Interpol for him and Nenad Stevandic. In recent days, Dodik has been traveling from Banja Luka through Serbia to Israel and back to Belgrade, where he arrived on Thursday night into Friday.
The RS government plane returned to Banja Luka a little later and Dodik is believed not to have been on board, but to have remained in Belgrade. He doesn’t have to worry about accommodation because he has a 400-square-meter villa in the elite Belgrade neighborhood of Dedinje, for which he officially paid 750 euros, but it is questionable where he got so much money, so it is the subject of an investigation. But for now, this is a secondary problem that is worrying the Serb leader in Bosnia and Herzegovina and friend of Zoran Milanovic.
ARREST ORDER FOR DODIK
In late February, Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison and banned from holding political office for six years for passing illegal laws. He declared the decisions of the Constitutional Court and the High Representative of the International Community in BiH invalid by decrees, which prompted the Court of BiH to issue an international arrest warrant. Arrest warrants have also been issued for the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska Radovan Višković and the Speaker of the National Assembly Nenad Stevandić, and they face several years in prison for attacking the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
They participated in the adoption of unconstitutional laws that attempted to prevent the functioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina institutions in Republika Srpska. According to these laws, BiH state bodies – the police, the prosecutor’s office and the state court – should be banned from entering the territory of Republika Srpska. Dodik has even called on all Serbs employed in these institutions to be transferred to work in the entity’s institutions.
NEW ACCUSES
The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has sent a new summons for questioning to the President of the Republic of Serbia, Milorad Dodik, Istraga.ba learns. A new summons has been sent as part of the ongoing investigation into the “Villa in Dedinje” case. According to that summons, Dodik must report to the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH on Wednesday, April 2. In this criminal case, Bosnia and Herzegovina has requested international legal assistance from Serbia, but to date the authorities of that country have not provided the requested documents.
As a reminder, Milorad Dodik bought a villa in Dedinje, Belgrade in 2007. Dodik signed the contract for the purchase of a part of the property on May 16, 2007. The owner of the second part of the villa was Aleksandar Obradović, then the director of ČEZ for Serbia. If Dodik does not respond to the summons from the BiH Prosecutor’s Office on Wednesday, an arrest warrant will be issued for him, which also opens the possibility of issuing a new international arrest warrant for the criminal offense of corruption, reports Istraga.ba.
RUSSIA’S WARNING
In all this, Dodik has the support of his ally, Vladimir Putin. The Russian Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina has assessed that the country is again at risk of war due to the decision to sentence Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik to prison and has blamed “Western instigators” for this. In a post on its Facebook page, the Russian Embassy accused the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina of sentencing Dodik to a year in prison and a six-year ban on political activity for political reasons for not respecting the decisions of the high representative of the international community. “If the Frankenstein of war and conflict reappears here, the blame will be solely on Western instigators and provocateurs,” the post says. (DW)
