The political leader made a brief appearance at the opening of his trial on Wednesday before his defence asked it to be relocated to his home town.
ADVERTISEMENTThe political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Milorad Dodik, made a brief appearance on Wednesday in Sarajevo on the first day of his trial, which opened for a few minutes before being adjourned after his lawyers requested the proceedings be relocated to his home town of Banja Luka.
Mr Dodik, 64, is to be tried for failing to respect the authority of the international High Representative responsible for overseeing the application of the peace agreements that put an end to the inter-community war (1992-1995) in this former Yugoslav republic.
The undisputed leader of Republika Srpska (RS), the Bosnian Serb entity, is the first political leader to appear on these charges. He faces up to five years in prison and a ban on political activity.
Upon his arrival in the courtroom, Milorad Dodik was applauded at length by an audience of Bosnian Serb political leaders. He asked a policeman, who had been assigned by protocol to sit next to him, to move away, and then refused to stand up to hear the judge's first words.
"If you refuse to stand up, I could decide to remove you from the courtroom, but I won't do it this time", Judge Mirsad Strika told the accused. "As you see fit," Mr Dodik replied.
As the judge asked the prosecution to begin reading out the indictment, Mr Dodik's lawyer, Goran Bubic, called for the trial to be postponed pending a decision on his request to relocate the proceedings to a court in Banja Luka, the capital of the RS.
The court is due to make its decision in the next few days. If it is upheld in Sarajevo, the trial will resume on 20 January.
On leaving the court, Mr Dodik again denounced a "political trial" made possible, in his view, by the intervention of a "foreigner who modifies decisions and imposes laws", in reference to the measures recently taken by the international High Representative, Christian Schmidt.
He also insulted the German diplomat and the US ambassador to Bosnia, Michael Murphy, two men whose "colonial behaviour" he denounced and whom he regularly accused of instigating his trial.