Bosnian Serb leader Dodik sentenced to jail for defying peace envoy
World
Milorad Dodik has close ties with Russia
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - A Bosnia court on Wednesday sentenced Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik to one year in jail and ordered him to step down from his role as president of the country's Serb-dominated region for defying orders of an international peace envoy.
Dodik, head of Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic, was for signing laws that suspended rulings by the constitutional court and by international peace envoy Christian Schmidt, whose role was created in 1995 to stop the Balkan country from slipping back into war.
Dodik, who has close ties with Russia, has rejected the indictment as politically motivated. Under criminal law, Bosnians can pay a fine instead of facing jail time if the sentence is no more than one year.
"There is no reason to worry. I learned to put up with more difficult things," Dodik told supporters in Banja Luka.
Dodik has two weeks to appeal the ruling, which also states that he cannot rule for six years. It was not clear if he would appeal.
Wednesday's ruling will become official when the appeal process is over, legal experts said.
The verdict could trigger a crisis in Bosnia, which suffered a bloody ethnic conflict the 1990s and has since been split into two autonomous regions: the Serb-dominated Serb Republic and the Federation shared by Croats and Bosniaks.
They are linked via a weak central government that has been unable to bridge lingering ethnic divides.
Before the verdict, Dodik said a ruling against him could "strike a death blow to Bosnia and Herzegovina," and that he would seek to split the country if the ruling goes against him. He warned that the Serb Republic would block the work of Bosnia's central government and from the state judiciary and joint armed forces.
He also spoke of a monetary union and confederation with neighbouring Serbia, the Bosnian Serbs' long-time ally.
Neither Dodik nor his lawyers attended Wednesday's hearing.
Bosnia's 1992-95 war - part of a wider set of conflicts that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia - killed about 100,000 people.
Under a US-backed deal in 1995, known as the Dayton Peace Agreement, power was given to the autonomous regions.
Under the agreement, peace envoy and German ex-government minister Schmidt has the power to interpret the peace deal.
But Dodik has been under for obstructing it, and has long advocated for the secession of his Serb-dominated region.
He, like many Serbs, says Schmidt has no legal authority because his appointment was not endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.
The original indictment came after Dodik signed two laws that Schmidt had revoked saying they defied Bosnia's constitution and the terms of the peace deal.
One law suspended rulings by Bosnia's constitutional court and the second ended publication of the peace envoy's decrees and laws in the Serb Republic's official gazette.
