Bosnia asks Israel to arrest Serb leader visiting for antisemitism confab
As member of Interpol, Israel faced with prospect of detaining Putin ally who was invited to participate in controversial confab related to inclusion of far-right European leaders
SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Bosnia on Thursday issued an international arrest warrant for Milorad Dodik, the leader of the deeply divided country’s Serb statelet who is accused of flouting the constitution and is currently visiting Israel.
A similar arrest warrant was issued for the speaker of the Serb entity Republika Srpska’s (RS) assembly, Nenad Stevandic, who returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina on March 18 after a visit to Serbia.
Since the end of the 1992-1995 war, Bosnia has been split into two semi-autonomous halves — the Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat federation. Both have their own governments and parliaments and share weak central institutions.
The prosecutor’s office said warrants were issued for Dodik and Stevandic for “using their high-ranking positions in the Republika Srpska entity” to go abroad “while evading legally prescribed border control procedures.”
Dodik, a Kremlin ally, has threatened to secede the Serb entity from Bosnia and barred central police and judicial officials from working there — an order that was suspended by the constitutional court.
Dodik, Stevandic and RS Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic are accused of attacking the constitutional order, and an arrest warrant was issued within Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Dodik and Stevanivic then defied this by traveling abroad.
“All of this suggests that both individuals could be abroad at any given moment, which provides grounds for action,” the State Court said in a statement, adding that it had issued an international arrest order and the matter was now in Interpol’s hands.
Stevandic was seen in the Serbian capital Belgrade on March 15, while Dodik traveled this week to neighboring Serbia, where he attended a gathering with populist President Aleksandar Vucic, who said Serbia would not arrest Dodik and has criticized legal proceedings against him.
Dodik then continued to Israel on Tuesday to attend an international conference on combating antisemitism.
“I started a visit to Israel, a country whose strength, history and determination I deeply respect,” Dodik said earlier on X.
As a member of Interpol, Israel will need to decide if it will act on the arrest warrant.
It was the latest upset for the antisemitism conference, organized by Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, which has been thrown into controversy related to its inclusion of far-right European politicians.
Dodik met Wednesday with Minister Zeev Elkin and toured the site of the Nova music festival massacre in the south of the country, where over 360 people were murdered during the October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel led by Palestinian terror group Hamas.
➡️ Horrified by the monstrous nature of the crime perpetrated here on October 7, I visited the site where Hamas abducted the young Serbian and Israeli citizen, Alon Ohel. As one from a people that has endured the tragedies of Vozuća, Kamenica, Kazane, and Sijekovac, I am… pic.twitter.com/cLLqD1Eybt
— Милорад Додик (@MiloradDodik) March 26, 2025
The Serb leader has faced US and British sanctions for his separatism, but he has had the support of Moscow.
Dodik, Stevandic and RS Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic are accused of attacking the constitutional order and an arrest warrant was issued within Bosnia and Herzegovina by the federal government.
Tensions have soared in Bosnia since Dodik was sentenced last month to a year in prison and handed a six-year ban from office for defying Christian Schmidt, the international envoy charged with overseeing the peace deal that ended Bosnia’s inter-ethnic war in the 1990s.
Bosnia’s divided politics and fragile, post-war institutions have faced increasing uncertainty amid the unfolding political crisis.
There have been fears of clashes between the police loyal to Dodik and the Bosnian police forces, stoking tensions that have pushed Bosnia to the biggest crisis since more than 100,000 people were killed in an ethnic war from 1992 to 1995.
The conflict in Bosnia ended in a US-brokered peace deal that created two administrations bound by central institutions.
Bosnia’s Serbs took up arms after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s to create a state to join with neighboring Serbia.
Bosnia has been seeking European Union membership, but progress has been slow because of constant ethnic and political disputes.
The Times of Israel Community.