The trial of Milorad Dodik, President of the Republika Srpska, and Miloš Lukić, v. d. to the director of the Official Gazette of the Republika Srpska, who are accused of not implementing the decisions of the high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
According to the schedule published on the official website of the Court, the hearing of the accused Dodik and Lukić is scheduled for today at the same time, in the same courtroom and with the same judge.
The main trial against Dodik, after several prolongations, was opened on February 5, and against Lukić on February 13, since the proceedings against them were temporarily separated at the hearing on January 17, after Lukić did not attend the trial for health reasons.
In the meantime, Lukić’s defense requested the merger of the proceedings, and Dodik’s defense submitted a motion to disqualify the judge of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sena Uzunović, who was hired in this case instead of the former judge Mirsad Strika, who is retiring soon.
The opening of the main trial against Dodik and Lukić was supposed to take place in December last year, but it was prolonged several times for procedural reasons, i.e. because of the repeated requests of the defense, which insisted on moving the trial from Sarajevo to Banja Luka, then on the exemption of judges and prosecutors, and which the Court ultimately rejected as unfounded or inadmissible.
Let us remind you that the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina filed an indictment against Milorad Dodik and Miloš Lukić for disobeying the decisions of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt.
The indictment states, among other things, that Dodik and Lukić committed the criminal offense in the period from July 1 to July 9, knowingly, even though they knew that the high representative had made a decision to repeal the Law on the Non-Enforcement of Decisions of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted by the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska.
On October 16, at the hearing in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dodik and Lukić said that they did not understand the indictment, after which it was stated that the accused pleaded not guilty.