Prosecutors demanded a near five-year jail sentence Wednesday for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik for defying the envoy who oversees the peace accords that ended the country's bloody 1990s war.
His trial marks a potential tipping point for the divided Balkan nation, testing the weak central government's ability to hold a leading politician to account after he openly flouted the country's peace deal and court system.
Dodik is charged with refusing to comply with decisions handed down by Bosnia's High Representative, Christian Schmidt, the top international envoy who oversees the 1995 Dayton agreement.
Dodik, president of the Bosnian Serb statelet of Republika Srpska (RS), pushed through two laws in 2023 previously annulled by Schmidt.
They refused to recognise decisions made by the high representative and Bosnia's constitutional court in the statelet.
Under the peace deal which ended Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, the country was split into two highly-autonomous halves -- a Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb-dominated RS.
The two are connected by a weak central government, under supervision of an international high representative.
Prosecutor Nedim Cosic asked the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina Wednesday to sentence Dodik to "close to the maximum" of five years in jail as well as a 10-year ban on holding public office.
He sought the same prison sentence for Milos Lukic, head of the RS Official Gazette which published the laws, who was tried along with Dodik.
Dodik's lawyer Goran Bubic slammed what he called a "political" trial whose "clear aim is to eliminate President Dodik from political life in Bosnia". He called for Dodik's acquittal.
Pro-Russian Dodik, the leading Bosnian Serb figure for nearly two decades, has constantly challenged the powers of Schmidt, a German diplomat named to the post in 2021.
In his statement in the courtroom on Wednesday, Dodik again challenged the legitimacy of Schmidt, saying he "was not legally elected" because his appointment by the Peace Implementation Council in Bosnia was not validated by a UN Security Council resolution, unlike those of his predecessors.
He also called into question the modification of the Bosnian criminal code imposed by Schmidt in July 2023 -- which introduced the offence of non-compliance with the decisions of the High Representative -- that allowed prosecutors to bring the charges against him.
"Laws can only be adopted or amended by the Bosnian Parliament. They cannot be changed by the decisions of the High Representative," Dodik told the judge.
Dodik had earlier dismissed the case against him as a "purely political process" and stated that he did not intend to recognise the verdict, which is scheduled to be read on Wednesday, February 26.
