FILE PHOTO: President of Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) Milorad Dodik gestures as Bosnian Serbs protest against the resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica which is to be adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in early May, in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, April 18, 2024. REUTERS/Amel Emric/File Photo
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Bosnia's autonomous Serb region passed legislation barring the state police and judiciary from its territory after a court sentenced its separatist leader Milorad Dodik to a year in jail and banned him from politics for six years.
The move undermines state institutions, touching off a constitutional crisis in ethnically polarised post-war Bosnia. Russia, Dodik's most powerful supporter, said the sentence was politically motivated and would destabilise the Balkans.
The court in Bosnia's capital Sarajevo acted after Dodik
signed Serb Republic legislation suspending rulings by Bosnia's constitutional court and international envoy Christian Schmidt, who oversees implementation of the 1995 Dayton peace treaty.
Dodik, in remarks to lawmakers before they approved the law on Thursday evening, cast the move as an act of secession in defiance of the 1990s peace accord that kept Bosnia intact but split into two autonomous regions largely along ceasefire lines.
"This moment is favourable and I call on you to vote for the law without hesitation," the Bosnian Serb nationalist leader told MPs in Banja Luka, the regional capital. "We think this creates momentum for us to do this without the use of force."
Aleksandar Vucic, president of neighbouring Serbia, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also condemned the court verdict against Dodik.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; editing by Mark Heinrich)
