The highest judicial body in Bosnia-Herzegovina has confirmed an indictment against secessionist Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and the acting director of an official legal bulletin over a push to ignore decisions by the international overseer in the stubbornly divided Balkan country.
The Bosnian state court confirmation of investigators' assertions, filed in August, was confirmed to RFE/RL's Balkan Service on September 11.
It clears the way for the first trial in Bosnia of Dodik for alleged political crimes since he emerged as a major force in postwar Republika Srpska, the Serb-majority entity that along with a Bosniak-Croat federation compose Bosnia since a 1995 peace deal.
Dodik and Milos Lukic, who heads the Bosnian Serbs' official legal gazette, are charged with criminal offenses in connection with efforts to ignore decisions by Bosnia's Constitutional Court and to block the publication of decisions by international High Representative Christian Schmidt.
The Office of the High Representative is the international community's overseer of civilian, administrative, and other aspects of government stemming from the Dayton agreement that ended three years of intense fighting in 1995, following the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Dodik's lawyer, Goran Bubic, told RFE/RL's Balkan Service that he had no official information and could not comment until any indictment was delivered to his client.
The legislation at the center of the case was approved by Republika Srpska lawmakers in June and signed by Dodik on July 7, before being published in the gazette run by Lukic.
The Bosnian court first received the indictments from federal prosecutors on August 11 but returned it for amendment on August 18. The amended indictments came back to the court on August 24.
The threat of a criminal trial for longtime secessionist Bosnian Serb leader Dodik sparked roadblocks and protests from Serbs beginning on September 1.
Dodik is a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Republika Srpska officials led by Dodik have questioned Schmidt's legitimacy since Moscow and Beijing opposed his appointment through their roles on the UN Security Council.
Schmidt has called the protests on the entities' mutual frontiers a "cheap manipulation" of citizens in a country still heavily divided along ethnic lines between majority Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs. He said it was “irresponsible to stage divisive political events at the Inter-Entity Boundary Line," which he called not a border between Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat federation but a "purely administrative line."
Over the weekend, Dodik appeared to slightly back off his pledge to ban Schmidt, who is based in Sarajevo, from entering Republika Srpska.
Dodik is under sanctions by the U.S Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) over alleged corruption and threatening the stability and territorial integrity of the country. He has also been designated for sanctions by the U.K. government because of his attempts to push for "de facto secession of Republic of Srpska."