Bosnia state police fail in attempted arrest of Serb leader Dodik

By Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - 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.

(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic in Sarajevo; Editing by Matthew lewis)