A court in the Bosnian Serb entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina on February 29 acquitted imam Muharem Stulanovic of the charge of "harming the reputation and honor of the Republika Srpska and its peoples."
Stulanovic was charged with the crime after he called Republika Srpska a "genocidal creation" in January 2023 during a religious ceremony at the Faculty of Islamic Pedagogy in Bihac, where he is a professor.
The decision of the court in Banja Luka follows a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which last month declared the charge unconstitutional.
"A persecution that should not have happened has ended," Stulanovic told RFE/RL after the trial.
Stulanovic's lawyer, Dusko Tomic, said the verdict was a victory for both the Constitutional Court and Bosnia.
"It has been confirmed once again that the judiciary respects the decisions of the Constitutional Court," Tomic said.
But Tomic also asserted that Republika Srpska's Prosecutor-General's Office did not comply with the decision of the Constitutional Court by failing to drop the charge against Stulanovic before the trial even started on January 10.
The case against him is the first confirmed indictment by the Prosecutor-General's Office of a person for calling Republika Srpska a "genocidal creation."
Stulanovic was charged based on Entity Criminal Code changes by Republika Srpska's assembly in July 2021 after amendments to the State Criminal Code imposed by then-High Representative Valentin Inzko prohibiting the denial of genocide and other war crimes, as well as the glorification of war criminals.
There was heightened interest in the trial after the decision of the Constitutional Court ruling last month and after Republika Srpska last year adopted a law saying the decisions of the Constitutional Court would not be enforced in the territory of the entity.
Ethnic Serbs in Republika Srpska have for years resisted Bosnia's central authorities, and the entity's assembly voted in June to suspend recognition of any decisions by Bosnia's multiethnic Constitutional Court.
Christian Schmidt, the international community's current high representative in Bosnia, annulled that law in July, a move that has been rejected by Republika Srpska, as were other decisions by Schmidt.