President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik waves to his supporters in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 26 February 2025. EPA-EFE/NIDAL SALJIC Dodik, the president of Bosnia's Serb Republic region, has triggered the gravest crisis since a 1990s war after being sentenced for a year in jail and banned from politics for six years over ignoring rulings by an international peace envoy.
Dodik, the pro-Russian long-time advocate of secession from Bosnia, had initiated legislation barring the state judiciary and police from operating in the Serb region, but Bosnia's constitutional court temporarily suspended that.
Defying an internal arrest warrant, he crossed into neighbouring Serbia earlier this week then travelled to Israel for an antisemitism conference in Jerusalem on Thursday.
Bosnia's state court said an international warrant was also issued for Nenad Stevandic, speaker of the Serb Republic parliament who had travelled to Serbia though is now back in Bosnia. The warrants are with the international police Interpol, the court said in a statement.
Dodik says the accusations against him are meaningless as they are politically motivated.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)