Bosnian Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik described the sentence he was handed down earlier today as politically motivated, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
A Sarajevo court sentenced Dodik to one year in prison and banned him from politics for six years for ignoring decisions of the international community's high representative in Bosnia, Christian Schmidt. The High Representative of the International Community is responsible for upholding the Dayton Agreement.
Under the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war in the 1990s, Bosnia is divided into the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, shared by Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats, who are bound by a weak central government. The Dayton Agreement gives the High Representative of the International Community in Bosnia broad powers, including the power to impose laws and dismiss officials or civil servants who undermine the fragile ethnic balance in post-war Bosnia.
Dodik was indicted in 2023. for signing laws that suspend decisions by the constitutional court and those of the international community's top representative, whose role was created in 1995 to prevent the Balkan country from sliding back into war, Reuters recalls.
The president of Republika Srpska, who has close ties to Russia, has rejected the accusation and responded with measures to reduce the state presence in the Serb-dominated region of Bosnia he leads, banning the state prosecutor, the state court and the intelligence agency.
He is likely to avoid prison, as Bosniaks can pay a fine instead of imprisonment if the sentence is no more than a year, the agency notes.
Dodik has two weeks to appeal the decision, which will become official when the appeals process is completed. Neither he nor his lawyers were present in court today.
“From today there is no more Bosnia and Herzegovina“, he told a crowd of supporters in Banja Luka. “I need the support of the people and I will go all the way”, Dodik added, quoted by Reuters.
Later today, Dodik compared his sentence on the social network X with today's detention of former Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu.
“The arrest of Calin Georgescu in Romania and my sentence in Bosnia and Herzegovina are part of the same campaign by legal means of the globalists, who desperately claim power by silencing the opposition and manipulating elections,”, Dodik wrote.
He added: “(US Vice President) J.D. Vance was right - democracy is under attack. Only the truth and the will of the people can stop them!"