President of Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) Milorad Dodik waves as he attends Serb Republic national holiday, banned by the constitutional court, in East Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, January 9, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - A trial that should have commenced on Wednesday of separatist Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik for defying the rulings of an international peace envoy was adjourned until Jan. 17 over procedural issues brought up by his legal team.
Dodik, who is the president of Bosnia´s autonomous Serb Republic, was indicted in August by state prosecutors after signing laws that suspended rulings by the constitutional court and by the peace envoy.
This was the second time the trial has been postponed, after Dodik's lawyers requested last month that it should be moved to a court in the Serb Republic´s main city of Banja Luka, citing alleged political pressure on the state court in the capital Sarajevo.
A judge dismissed the request.
On Wednesday, the lawyers requested that four prosecutors should be exempted over alleged biases, leaving nobody from the prosecutor's team to read the indictment.
Judge Mirsad Strika adjourned the trial until Jan. 17.
Dodik declined to take the stand in court and swore when Strika asked him to do so.
"This trial will turn into the trial of the prosecutors and of Bosnia and Herzegovina," Dodik told reporters as he left court, accusing the prosecutors of bias and incompetence.
Bosnian Serbs reject the jurisdiction of the central state court and prosecutors as it was set up by the peace envoy after Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, not by the Dayton peace treaty.
Under the peace deal, Bosnia was split into two autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and a Federation dominated by Croats and Bosniaks, linked via a weak central government - a blueprint that secured peace but left Bosnia dysfunctional as a state.
Dodik has acted to separate his Serb-dominated region from Bosnia for a long time but intensified efforts over the past two years and repeatedly denounced his political opponents and Western ambassadors to Bosnia, where around 100,000 people died in the war.
The Serbs do not recognise German former government minister Christian Schmidt as the international High Representative in Bosnia, saying that he was not endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.
Schmidt amended Bosnia's criminal code in July to provide for prosecutions of those seen as attacking Bosnian state institutions.
Under the amendments, any official in Bosnia who fails to implement a decision of the High Representative or obstructs it in any way can be jailed for up to five years.
(This story has been corrected to change the surname of the judge to Strika instead of Strik in paragraphs 6-7)
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
