Following Serbia, Hungary has also submitted an appeal against the request for an Interpol red notice for the President of Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik, according to the Sarajevo-based portal Raport, citing sources that remain unnamed.

The portal notes that “the specifics of the complaint remain unclear,” but Hungary is presumed to argue that it constitutes a “political case.”

They recall that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, after the initial ruling by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina against Dodik, described it as a “witch hunt.”

“The political witch hunt targeting President Milorad Dodik exemplifies the misuse of the legal system as a tool against a democratically elected leader. To maintain stability in the Western Balkans, such actions are misguided,” Orban remarked at that time on the social media platform X.

Previously, Serbia lodged a protest note with Interpol, with Interior Minister Ivica Dačić stating that this action was taken because both Dodik, the President of the RS National Assembly, and Nenad Stevandić, for whom an international arrest warrant was also requested, are citizens of Serbia.

Dačić invoked Article 3 of the Interpol Statute, which prohibits “any activity or intervention in cases that have a political, military, religious, or racial context.”

Last week, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina requested Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant for Dodik and Stevandić due to their “non-availability to justice,” as they have been evading a summons to the BiH Prosecutor’s Office where they were expected for questioning regarding an “attack on the constitutional order of BiH.”

Following the First Instance Court’s sentencing of Dodik to one year in prison and imposing a six-year political activity ban for his failure to comply with the High Representative’s decisions, the RS parliament enacted several laws that obstruct the functioning of state judicial institutions and the Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) within that BiH entity.

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