Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has vowed not to attend a court hearing next week in Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, claiming that the court has no legitimacy.
In February, the court convicted Dodik to one year in prison and barred him from politics for six years for going against the decisions of the country’s so-called High Representative, Christian Schmidt, who oversees the implementation of the Dayton peace deal that put an end to the civil war.
However, in an interview with Euronews, Dodik said he considers the verdict “null and void,” and won’t even appeal because the court itself is banned in the territory of Bosnia’s Serb-majority entity Republika Srpska, of which Dodik is president.
Dodik has accused Schmidt of overstepping his mandate and said the trial launched against him was intended to “eliminate him from the political arena.”
The 65-year-old nationalist politician has been pursuing a separatist agenda for many years. He has suggested that Bosnian Serbs should unite with neighbouring Serbia.
He has regularly called Bosnia—which consists of Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Muslim-Croat territory—a “failed state” and a Western “experiment” that “does not work.”
While the EU has denounced Dodik’s actions, the Bosnian Serb leader has received the backing of both Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán.
The latter received him in Budapest on Thursday, June 5th. This was Dodik’s first visit to an EU member state since Bosnia’s federal authorities issued an arrest warrant against him on secession charges.
“Republika Srpska is fortunate to have friends like Viktor Orbán,” Dodik wrote on his X account.
