Bosnian Court Upholds Sentence For Serb Leader

An appeals court in Bosnia-Herzegovina upheld a one-year prison sentence for pro-Russian Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, escalating political tensions in the deeply divided country and drawing strong condemnation from neighboring Serbia, the Associated Press reported. 

Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, the ethnic Serb-run entity of Bosnia, was convicted in February for defying rulings by the international envoy overseeing the implementation of the Dayton Accords signed in 1995 between Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, that ended the war in Bosnia.  

On Friday, the higher court upheld the previous decision, adding that the ruling was not subject to appeal. However, Dodik’s lawyers said they would attempt to appeal to Bosnia’s highest court.  

The court also banned Dodik from holding office for six years, a ruling that the defendant vowed to defy, Reuters reported. 

Instead, the Serb leader rejected the verdict as a “political decision” orchestrated by Bosnian Muslims with support from the European Union. He pledged to continue serving in his post with backing from the Republika Srpska’s parliament and said he would seek support from Serbia, Russia, and the new US administration. 

Dodik has long pushed for Republika Srpska’s secession from Bosnia in order to unite with Serbia. He has repeatedly challenged the authority of Bosnia’s central institutions and the international high representative, Christian Schmidt, who oversees the Dayton Accords. 

The Dayton Accords ended Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war and created a power-sharing structure dividing the country into two entities – the Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation – linked by weak central institutions. 

In response to the February conviction, the Serb entity’s parliament passed laws banning Bosnia’s judicial authorities and police from operating in Serb territory.  

Bosnia’s constitutional court annulled those laws in May. 

The former Biden administration had previously sanctioned Dodik for separatism, corruption, and close ties to Moscow. 

The EU called on all parties to respect the independence of the judiciary and the binding nature of the verdict, which some observers warn may have triggered Bosnia’s worst political crisis in decades, according to Agence France-Presse. 

On Saturday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić criticized the ruling as “a destabilizing factor” in the region. Vučić said Serbia would not arrest Dodik if a warrant were issued and that he remained welcome on Serbian territory as the “legitimately, legally elected president of Republika Srpska.”  

Officials in Belgrade also called the verdict “a serious attack on the Serbian people of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” warning it risked inciting ethnic conflict and undermining the Dayton Accords.