Bosnian Police Ordered to Leave Serb Republic Offices

Following the adoption of laws banning state institutions from operating in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity, the staff of the State Investigation and Protection Agency were told to leave their office in Banja Luka.

Azem Kurtic, March 7, 2025

SIPA regional office in Banja Luka. Photo: BIRN.

Police in Republika Srpska on Friday asked the State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s national police service, to leave its premises in Banja Luka, the administrative centre of the mainly Serb entity.

The move came after the Republika Srpska Assembly adopted laws undermining Bosnia’s state-level institutions in a response to the recent first-instance conviction of Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik.

Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison plus a six-year ban on being president of Republika Srpska for defying the decisions of the High Representative, the international official overseeing Bosnia’s post-war peace agreement.

According to media reports, SIPA workers on Friday left the building in Banja Luka.

The director of the Republika Srpska Police, Sinisa Kostresevic, informed the director of SIPA, Darko Culum, who then notified the SIPA regional office in Banja Luka about the request to vacate the building.

All the employees were told to leave and take their belongings, including their weapons.

Culum sought to play down the situation. “I am at my workplace, for me, it’s just a regular working day,” he told Euronews.ba. He was dismissive about the call to quit the building: “That’s nothing, just an ordinary request, a letter,” he said.

SIPA also said Republika Srpska Interior Ministry did not come to its office in Banja Luka, and that operations at the agency’s main headquarters in East Sarajevo, also in the Republika Srpska, were running smoothly.

“Work at SIPA’s headquarters in East Sarajevo is proceeding without disruption,” the agency stated. The statement followed reports about attempts by the Republika Srpska authorities to take over all SIPA facilities in the entity.

Following the verdict in Dodik’s trial on February 26, the RS National Assembly voted to ban Bosnia’s state-level court and prosecutor’s office, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council and SIPA from exercising jurisdiction in the entity. Dodik then enforced the laws by signing a presidential decree late on Wednesday night.

The same assembly session voted changes to the entity’s criminal code, allowing for the prosecution of “any Serb who stays working in these [state-level] institutions”.

The Republika Srpska Interior Ministry issued a call on Thursday for SIPA employees to apply for transfer to it, while Dodik warned that all those who stay in the state-level institutions would be considered “Serb traitors”.

The Bosniak member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, Denis Becirovic, among others, immediately filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia, challenging the laws.

The state prosecutor’s office meanwhile summoned Dodik for questioning on Friday over the adoption of these laws, as a part of a wider investigation into the alleged undermining of Bosnia’s constitutional order.

Dodik said he would not respond. “The legal absurdity of Bosnia and Herzegovina is best reflected in the fact that an extra-constitutional institution is discussing the Constitution,” Dodik said on X .

“The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is summoning me to give a statement tomorrow as a suspect for undermining the constitutional order simply because I fulfilled my constitutional and legally prescribed duty following the decisions of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska,” Dodik added, again calling the state prosecutor’s office an unconstitutional entity.

Under Bosnian law, the state court can issue an arrest warrant to bring him in for questioning. It remains unclear if such steps will be made.

Copyright BIRN 2007