Bosnia’s Serb leader Milorad Dodik was indicted on Monday for refusing to heed rulings made by an international envoy charged with overseeing the country’s landmark peace accords.

Tensions have mounted since Dodik signed multiple pieces of controversial legislation in July — including bills that refuse to recognise decisions made by Bosnia’s international high representative Christian Schmidt and the constitutional court.

The indictment came after prosecutors greenlit the charges against Dodik in August. That decision received official endorsement from the country’s highest judicial body on Monday, paving the way for his first trial for committing alleged political crimes.

Dodik was indicted for “failure to comply with the decisions of the High Representative”, an official with the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

If convicted, the punishment for the crime ranges from six months to five years in prison.

Dodik has already hinted that he will not comply with the court’s decision if convicted.

“Dodik can go to court, but you will not put Milorad Dodik in prison even if you convict him,” he said during a televised interview earlier this month.

The 64-year-old Kremlin ally under US sanctions has repeatedly batted away accusations of wrongdoing, denouncing the allegations as political persecution.

– Dodik vs Schmidt –

Over the weekend, Dodik appeared to backtrack in his campaign against Schmidt by retracting an earlier vow to arrest the envoy if he entered Bosnia’s Serb entity — known as Republika Srpska (RS).

The high representative is charged with overseeing the enforcement of the Dayton Agreement that succeeded in ending the country’s bloody civil war in the 1990s.

Bosnia has been governed by a dysfunctional administrative system created by the Dayton pact — divided into two bodies: a Muslim-Croat federation and RS which are connected by a weak central government.