Bosnia's Serb political leader Milorad Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison and banned from holding public office for defying the decision of the fragile country's international peace representative.

Bosnia's Serb Republic is expected to bar the state police and judiciary from operating on its territory on Thursday, a day after a state court ordered the Russian-backed separatist Serb president to step down for defying an international peace envoy.

Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik was sentenced to one year in prison on Wednesday and ordered to step down from his role as president of the country's Serb-dominated region for six years for defying orders of an international peace envoy.

Milorad Dodik’s decades-long disruptive reign in Bosnia may be over as a top court bans him from politics and sentences him to prison.

A court in Bosnia has sentenced separatist Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik to one year in prison and banned him from engaging in politics for six years because of his unconstitutional actions.

A Bosnia court on Wednesday sentenced Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik to one year in jail and ordered him to step down as president of the country's Serb-dominated region for six years for defying orders of an international peace envoy.

A court in Bosnia has sentenced the pro-Russia Bosnian Serb president, Milorad Dodik, to one year in prison and banned him from politics for six years over his separatist actions as tensions mount in

But the Bosnian-Serb leader Milorad Dodik made light of the verdict at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The president of the country's majority-Serb Republika Srpska region told supporters at a rally in the regional capital Banja Luka there was "no reason to worry".