(Adnkronos) – The Bosnian Court of Appeal has confirmed the sentence of Serb entity political leader Milorad Dodik to one year in prison and disqualification from public office for six years for failing to comply with the decisions of the High Representative, responsible for implementing the 1995 peace agreement that ended the bloody war that broke out in 1992.
Dodik, the long-time president of the Bosnian Serb entity (Republika Srpska), was definitively found guilty of enacting two laws in July 2024, adopted by the Parliament of Republika Srpska, which prohibit the implementation of the High Representative’s decisions and the judgments of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia within the territory of the Serb entity.
“The written copy of the sentence was sent to the parties on August 1, 2025, and no appeal is allowed against this same verdict,” the Court said in a statement. Dodik’s conviction is unprecedented in Bosnia, a country divided into two entities since the end of the 1992-1995 war, one Serb and one Bosniak-Croat, and whose political life and laws have since been under the supervision of an International High Representative, a position currently held by German Christian Schmidt. (continued)
Immediately after the first-instance sentence, Dodik – who did not appear before the Sarajevo Court to hear the verdict – gathered several thousand supporters in Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska, and rejected the verdict, stating that he was not “guilty of anything”.
In response to the verdict, he also urged the Serb entity’s parliament to pass a law prohibiting the country’s central police and judicial system from operating in Republika Srpska and called on Serbs working in these institutions to leave them. A reaction that led to the opening of another investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office, this time for “attack on the constitutional order”.
