Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik was found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison for defying the decisions of an international envoy.
A court in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on Wednesday sentenced Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik to a year in prison and banned him from politics for six years.
The verdict came after a year-long trial of Dodik on charges that he failed to obey the top international envoy overseeing the peace process in the Balkan country.
Dodik, who has said he would disobey any ruling, and his lawyers were not in court for the verdict. The politician is expected to appeal the conviction.
Pro-Russian Dodik has previously threatened “radical measures” in response, including the possible secession of Bosnia’s Serb-run entity, called Republika Srpska (RS), from the rest of the country. In Bosnia, where a 1992-95 war killed 100,000 people and displaced millions, Dodik’s separatist threats stoked fears.
What was Dodik’s reaction?
When the verdict was announced in Sarajevo, Dodik was in the Bosnian Serb administrative capital of Banja Luka, where thousands rallied in his support.
“They say I am guilty, but now people here will say why I am not guilty,” Dodik told the crowd. “There is no reason to worry. I have learned to deal with tougher situations. It is important that you are here.”
Dodik told the crowd that he had spoken on the phone with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whom he called a friend. He invited Vucic to come to Banja Luka to discuss “what we are going to do next”.
He also said that the Bosnian Serb parliament would vote later on Wednesday to reject the legal proceedings against him. He also said that the parliament would ban the work of the state prosecutor, the state court, and the intelligence agency in RS.
What was Dodik sentenced for?
Under the peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war, the country was divided into two autonomous parts: a Muslim-Croat Federation and RS.
The two are linked by a weak central government under the supervision of an international High Representative overseeing the 1995 Dayton Accords. The position is currently held by German politician Christian Schmidt.
Dodik, who is the President of RS, pushed through two laws in 2023 that had previously been annulled by Schmidt. The legislation also refused to recognize decisions made by the High Representative and Bosnia’s Constitutional Court in Republika Srpska.
The Dayton peace agreement envisages that the High Representative can impose decisions and change laws in the country, but Dodik has repeatedly clashed with Schmidt and declared his decisions illegal in Republika Srpska.
