\n Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik Tuesday rejected allegations of taking a fake 750,000-euro ($835,000) loan from a local bank whose owner was arrested over money laundering in the transaction.\n<\/p>\n
\n A probe was opened following a complaint filed in late 2015 by an opposition leader who alleged that Dodik, president of Bosnia's Serb-run Republika Sprska half, was granted the loan to cover up the purchase of a villa in Belgrade that he paid for in cash.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dodik however told reporters Tuesday he was being targeted by \"unprofessional, arrogant and political\" entities in the judiciary.\n<\/p>\n
\n Earlier this month police arrested Slobodan Pavlovic, the head of the Pavlovic bank which granted the loan, as well as three other people, including a former bank director, over the affair.\n<\/p>\n
\n A prosecutor, quoted by local media, said Dodik was actually granted the loan in 2008, a year after the villa was bought, and that the one allegedly granted in 2007 was \"fictious\" with the documents regarding it were destroyed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dodik, who was not officially named as a suspect in the probe, assured he was granted the loan in 2007 and showed journalists a document claiming it was the loan agreement signed that year.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I feel very safe, I'm clean,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dodik, the most powerful politician in Bosnia's Serb entity for the past decade, had regularly criticised the work of the joint judicial bodies in charge of the case.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was threatening to organise a referendum on whether to give any recognition to the central judiciary, especially in rulings on war crimes and corruption cases.\n<\/p>\n
\n Many Bosnian Serbs consider it to be biased against the Serbs.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dodik has been targeted in the past by a multi-million-euro graft probe which was eventually halted in 2011 due to lack of evidence.\n<\/p>\n
\n Since its 1990s inter-ethnic war, Bosnia has been split into two entities -- the Serbs' Republika Srpska and Muslim-Croat Federation. Each entity has its own government and they are linked by weak central institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik Tuesday rejected allegations of taking a fake 750,000-euro ($835,000) loan from a local bank whose owner was arrested over money laundering in the transaction. A probe was opened following a complaint filed in late 2015 by an opposition leader who alleged that Dodik, president of Bosnia's Serb-run Republika Sprska half, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-26059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n