Dodik avoids detention after voluntarily appearing at Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office
Express newspaper
04/07/2025 23:41
The leader of the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, has avoided serving a prison sentence after voluntarily presenting himself to the Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office on Friday for questioning as a suspect in an attack on the constitutional order.
The Bosnian prosecutor’s office announced that Dodik was questioned in the presence of his defense attorney.
Months earlier, the Bosnian Court had issued a national arrest warrant for Dodik and ordered a month of detention for him, but he was never captured by the authorities.
During a hearing on Friday, the court accepted the prosecutors’ request to overturn Dodik’s pre-trial detention, saying that the previous reasons for his detention were no longer valid.
The court ordered that Dodik must appear before the justice authorities from time to time.
The mandatory appearance order may last as long as necessary, or until a new court decision, the announcement states.
“The suspect has been specifically warned that detention may be imposed if he violates the obligations under the prohibitory measures,” a joint statement from the Court and Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina said.
In February, the Bosnian Court of First Instance sentenced Dodik to one year in prison and banned him from holding the office of president of Republika Srpska for six years.
Dodik was found guilty of disrespecting the decisions of the high international representative, Christian Schmidt, and of signing decrees implementing laws that Schmidt had previously repealed.
These laws were intended to prohibit the implementation of decisions of the Bosnian Constitutional Court and the High Representative in the territory of the Bosnian Serb entity, which had previously repealed laws adopted by the entity Parliament regarding the registration of state property in the name of the entity or laws on holidays.
The Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office had announced that since December 2024 it had been conducting investigations into suspected attacks on the constitutional order of Bosnia.
In March of this year, the court issued arrest warrants for Dodik, the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, Radovan Višković, and the Speaker of the People’s Assembly of Republika Srpska, Nenad Stevandić, on suspicion of attacking the constitutional order.
The order was issued on the day the People’s Assembly of Republika Srpska was expected to discuss a draft constitution of Republika Srpska, through which authorities in this entity planned to define it as a state of the Serb people, grant it the right to self-determination, establish its own army, and abolish the Council of Peoples.
The Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina provides for sentences of up to five years in prison and a ban on exercising official duties for anyone who illegally attempts to change the constitutional order of Bosnia or overthrow its highest institutions./REL