BELGRADE (Reuters) -Bosnia’s prosecutor’s office said it had lifted an arrest warrant against separatist Serb leader Milorad Dodik after he surprisingly appeared at a hearing investigating allegations against him of violating the constitutional order.
After months of ignoring summons to attend the prosecutor’s office to answer questions, Dodik appeared at a hearing on Friday, authorities said in a statement issued late on Friday.
Dodik is a long-time advocate of the secession of the autonomous Serb Republic, one of two regions in Bosnia linked by a weak central government, and the crisis precipitated by his separatist push represents one of the biggest threats to peace in the Balkans since the 1990s conflicts that followed Yugoslavia’s collapse.
In February, he was sentenced to one year in jail and banned from holding office for six years for defying the decisions of an international peace envoy, the ultimate interpreter of Bosnia’s constitution under the Dayton peace accords that ended the 1992-95 war in which 100,000 people were killed.
In March, Bosnian state prosecutors ordered Dodik’s arrest for ignoring a court summons.
Following Friday’s hearing, Bosnia’s prosecutor’s office and the court issued a statement saying that the arrest warrant for him was withdrawn, though he will still have to report periodically to state authorities.
(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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