Bosnia court sentences Serb leader Dodik to one year in jail

Milorad Dodik, the head of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was given a year in prison by a Bosnian court for disobeying the international peace official’s orders to maintain peace in the Balkan nation.

The 65-year-old autonomous Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina received a six-year ban from the office on Wednesday.

Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic, was charged in 2023 with passing laws that halted decisions made by Christian Schmidt, an international peace envoy, and the constitutional court.

During the sentencing, the leader and his attorneys were not present.

Dodik has vowed to abdicate any conviction and has threatened “radical measures” in response, including the eventual secession of Republika Srpska, a serb-run organization in Bosnia, from the rest of the nation.

The court acquitted a second defendant, Milos Lucic, the former acting director of the Serb entity’s Official Gazette. Additionally, he was accused of purposefully preventing Schmidt’s decisions from being enforced.

The first-instance verdict could still be amended. Dragan Bursac, a columnist and political analyst for Al Jazeera Balkans, said it remains to be seen whether he “can buy out his sentence, if it’s possible, and whether he’ll be freed or if a compromise will be reached”.

The real issue is whether or not he will be able to hold other political positions within Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to Bursac, which is the part of the sentence that hurts him the most.

“In a month time, we’ll know the second-instance verdict, but I don’t believe the judicial system will stray much, and I don’t expect significant changes in the appellate process. These are likely the final details of Dodik’s sentence”.