Former President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, while still at the helm of the entity, traveled at least five times outside the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), despite an arrest warrant issued against him as part of ongoing legal proceedings.

Controversy surrounding Dodik’s border crossings did not cease even after his presidential mandate was revoked due to a final court ruling, and after the Court of BiH lifted the measure of detention against him, Radio Free Europe (RFE) reports.

The latest incident occurred on August 21, when the BiH Border Police allegedly provided Dodik with VIP access at the Banja Luka airport, from where he flew to Belgrade. The trip to Belgrade itself was not disputed, but his VIP status was controversial, as it was granted to him in his capacity as president of Republika Srpska, even though he had officially ceased to hold that office on August 18.

On February 26, the Court of BiH sentenced Dodik to one year in prison and imposed a six-year ban on performing the duties of president of Republika Srpska, effective from the date the verdict became final.

Dodik was found guilty of signing decrees to promulgate laws that the High Representative to BiH, Christian Schmidt, had previously annulled. Through these laws, the authorities in Republika Srpska sought to prevent the implementation of decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH and the High Representative within the entity.

Shortly after the first-instance verdict, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska adopted a package of laws abolishing the jurisdiction of BiH’s judicial and police institutions on the territory of RS. As a result, on March 17, the Court of BiH issued a central arrest warrant for Dodik on charges of attacking the constitutional order, after he failed to respond to a summons from the Prosecutor’s Office.

Following the issuance of the warrant, Dodik was supposed to be detained by any of the 16 police agencies in BiH, including the Border Police.

After months of evasion, on July 4, Dodik voluntarily appeared — accompanied by his lawyer — before the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, where he was questioned as a suspect in an investigation into the alleged crime of “attack on the constitutional order.”

At that hearing, the Court of BiH decided to lift his detention and imposed a measure of mandatory periodic reporting to a state authority, which once again allowed him to travel legally outside the country without the risk of arrest at the border.

However, between March 17 and July 4, while technically barred from leaving BiH due to the arrest warrant, Dodik traveled abroad at least five times.

The first trip was just a week later, on March 24, when Dodik — under still unclear circumstances — crossed the land border between BiH and Serbia to attend a commemoration in Batajnica, near Belgrade, marking the anniversary of NATO’s air campaign against Slobodan Milošević’s regime. The BiH Border Police announced it was investigating Dodik’s border crossing, but the results of the investigation remain unknown.

A few days later, on March 26–27, Dodik attended an antisemitism conference in Jerusalem, traveling to Israel on the Republika Srpska government’s plane from Belgrade.

Soon after, on April 1, Dodik met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. On platform X, Dodik wrote that Putin told him that Russia would push for the termination of the work of international institutions in BiH, including that of High Representative Schmidt.

According to available data, Dodik stayed put for more than a month before returning to Moscow on May 9, this time to attend the ceremony marking 80 years since the victory over Nazi Germany. He stated that during this visit, he met with Putin four times.

Less than a month later, on June 5, Dodik visited Budapest, where he met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. According to Republika Srpska Radio Television (RTRS), they discussed the possibility of Hungary funding projects in RS that Germany had abandoned due to separatist actions by the authorities in Banja Luka, led by Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats.

In August, Dodik’s conviction became final: one year in prison and a six-year ban on holding public office for defying the decisions of the High Representative.

On June 12, the Court of BiH confirmed the first-instance verdict of February 26, and on August 1, the ruling was delivered to the parties without the right to appeal.

This effectively meant that Dodik ceased to be president of Republika Srpska as of June 12. The Central Election Commission of BiH formally stripped him of his mandate on August 18, based on the final verdict.

Despite his public rhetoric, Dodik effectively accepted the verdict when his legal team requested that his prison sentence be converted into a fine. The court approved the request, and Dodik must now pay approximately 36,500 convertible marks (just over €18,000) instead of serving the prison term.

Nevertheless, Dodik continues to act as if he is still president of RS.

In his first meeting with a foreign leader after the final verdict, on August 5, Dodik traveled to Budapest, where Orbán expressed his support. He was accompanied in Hungary by Željka Cvijanović, the Serb member of BiH’s tripartite Presidency.

On August 10, Dodik revealed that he had traveled to Montenegro to meet with “some important Americans.” Montenegrin media reported that on August 7 in Herceg Novi, Dodik met with Richard Grenell, former U.S. Special Envoy for the Balkans, and that a Republican member of the U.S. Congress was also present at the meeting.

Publicly available flight data confirm that the RS government plane landed that day in Tivat, the closest airport to Herceg Novi.

On August 10, Dodik also announced that he was headed to “another destination to meet important people,” without disclosing where or with whom.

Regarding the latest controversial border crossing on August 21, when he was granted VIP treatment at the airport based on his status as RS president, which he no longer legally held, the BiH Border Police stated that it was reviewing all claims and available facts regarding the incident. The outcome of this review remains unknown.

Later that same day in Belgrade, Dodik attended a basketball match between the national teams of Serbia and Slovenia — his only known public appearance from that trip. Unlike his VIP treatment at the Banja Luka airport, Dodik was not welcomed as a state dignitary at the Belgrade Arena. | BGNES

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By Dženana Karabegović and Andrej Zarević, Radio Free Europe / RFE