Interpol declines Bosnian 'red notice' request for Serb leader Dodik, court says

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Interpol has denied a Bosnian court's request for a wanted alert for Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik, who is accused of attacking the constitutional order and went abroad in defiance, according to the court and a Serbian minister.

Interpol declined to comment, but Bosnia's state court confirmed to Reuters that a Red Notice, an alert typically issued for international fugitives, had not come into effect.

"All other circumstances and information are considered to be of confidential character so the court cannot comment on detailed reasons for the Interpol's decision," the court said in a statement.

The dispute, which pits Dodik and his allies Russia and Serbia against the United States and the European Union, is one of the biggest threats to peace in the Balkans since the 1990s conflicts that followed socialist Yugoslavia's collapse.

It began after Dodik, the president of Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic, defied rulings by the international envoy to Bosnia, whose role is to prevent the multi-ethnic Balkan state from slipping back into conflict.

Dodik was sentenced in February to a year in jail and banned from politics for six years over ignoring the envoy's rulings, a verdict Dodik can appeal against. A Bosnian court last week ordered an international arrest warrant be issued for Dodik and his aide over attacking the constitutional order, after the two went abroad in defiance of an internal arrest warrant.

"We are informed that Interpol General Secretariat has evaluated, based on our protest note and explanation by the Interpol Belgrade, that the request is not aligned with the Article 3 of the Statute and that the terms for issuing warrants have not been met," the office of Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said in a statement late on Wednesday.

"With this, Interpol has proven that it firmly sticks to the principles of neutrality and of not interfering in internal political matters of its member states," the statement said.

Dodik welcomed the news, saying Interpol's decision was proof that the warrant was politically motivated.

On Wednesday, Dodik returned to Bosnia after a diplomatic tour of Serbia, Israel and Russia where he lobbied for support for his political moves, which undermine the fragile structure of the Balkan state. Bosnia comprises two highly autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Bosniak-Croat Federation.

A long-time advocate of secession from Bosnia, Dodik had initiated legislation barring the state judiciary and police from operating in the Serb region, but Bosnia's constitutional court temporarily suspended that.

(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic, additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Bart Meijer; Editing by William Maclean)