A Sarajevo court has replaced a one-year prison sentence for Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, with a fine of 36,500 convertible marks (approximately $21,600). The ruling follows a proposal by Dodik’s defense and an opinion from the Prosecutor’s Office, as Bosnian law allows for substituting up to one year of imprisonment with a daily fine of €52. The decision came after an appeals court confirmed earlier charges of anti-constitutional conduct against Dodik.
The charges stemmed from allegations that Dodik had blocked Constitutional Court rulings in Republika Srpska and defied Christian Schmidt, the German national who heads the Office of the High Representative (OHR), overseeing the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. Dodik, who has long accused Schmidt of overreach and infringing on Republika Srpska’s autonomy, has been a vocal opponent of Bosnia’s EU accession and NATO integration. He previously accused Brussels of being behind the attack on him and pledged to seek support from Serbia, Russia, and the U.S. administration of Donald Trump.
The court’s decision comes as Bosnia’s Central Election Commission revoked Dodik’s presidential mandate, which he has called ‘just more crap from Sarajevo,’ vowing not to step down. Meanwhile, Srdjan Mazalica, head of the parliamentary group of Dodik’s SNSD party in the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, criticized the trial as a ‘judicial disgrace,’ urging the case to be taken to the European Court of Human Rights.