The Vice President of the Bosniak entity in Republika Srpska (RS), Ćamil Duraković, stated tonight that RS President Milorad Dodik has “executed a coup d’état” by enacting a decree that prohibits the operations of the Court and Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as well as the BiH Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) within that entity.

Duraković remarked, “The Republika Srpska entity has effectively seceded. This marks a direct reversal of our security arrangements stemming from Srebrenica, Bratunac, and other parts of eastern Bosnia, Krajina, Posavina, and Semberija back into the control of the RS Ministry of Interior,” as reported by media outlets in Sarajevo.

He stressed that “anyone who fails to recognize this as an existential threat is blinded.”

“The people were brought back with a promise that the central government of BiH would ensure our security, yet today Milorad Dodik has returned us to the control of Ljubomir Borovčanin,” the wartime commander of the RS Special Police, who has been convicted of war crimes in Srebrenica,” Duraković concluded.

Dodik announced the signing of decrees this evening that officially ban the operations of the Court and Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Investigation and Protection Agency of BiH (SIPA), and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of BiH (HJPC) in the territory of Republika Srpska.

He indicated that these laws would take effect on Friday.

Ljubomir Borovčanin was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in September 2002. He voluntarily surrendered to the court in April 2005, receiving a sentence of 2010 years in prison in 17 counts.

He was transferred to Denmark to serve his sentence in 2011 and was released on August 1, 2016, after serving two-thirds of his term.

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