Bosnia Serb Leader Sentenced To Jail For Defying International Peace Envoy

A Bosnia court on Wednesday sentenced Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik to one year in jail for defying orders of an international peace envoy. 

Dodik, president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic, was indicted in 2023 for signing laws that suspended rulings by the constitutional court and by international peace envoy Christian Schmidt.

Dodik 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. 

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, linked via a central government.

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