Bosnia's autonomous Serb region passed legislation barring the national police and judiciary from its territory after a state court banned its separatist leader Milorad Dodik from politics for six years and sentenced him to a year in prison.

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".

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 the fragile Balkan state.