Radical Bosnian imam jailed for encouraging IS jihadists

A Bosnian court on Thursday jailed a radical Muslim leader for seven years for inciting terrorism by encouraging his followers to fight alongside jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

Husein Bosnic, known as Bilal, "is found guilty of publicly inciting terrorist activities, recruiting (people) to commit terrorist acts and organising a terrorist group," the judge Amela Huskic said. Bosnic pleaded not guilty at the start of his trial in January, the first of its kind to open in the small Balkan country.

The 43-year-old, from the country's northwest, was arrested last year and charged with urging followers to leave for Syria and Iraq and fight with Islamic militants during his sermons in several Bosnian towns in 2013 and 2014. "After his public preachings, a large number of Bosnian citizens who are members of the Salafist community left Bosnia and joined terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (IS) group and committed terrorist acts," prosecutors said. Six of his followers were killed on the frontline there, according to the prosecutors.

Bosnic was a member of a mujahideen unit during the 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war in Bosnia, to which foreign fighters flocked from North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He proclaimed himself leader of a local branch of the hard-line Islamist Wahhabi movement in late 2013 after his "predecessor" Nusret Imamovic left for Syria. During the trial he said he was the father of 18 children in a union with four women, although polygamy is forbidden in Bosnia.

Bosnia adopted a new law last year allowing for jail sentences of up to 20 years for jihadists and their recruiters. Earlier this month, following a trial that opened after Bosnic's, two men were jailed for trying to join jihadists in Syria – they were arrested at Sarajevo airport – and another pair were imprisoned for helping them.

About 200 Bosnian nationals have joined jihadist groups in Iraq or Syria, according to intelligence estimates quoted in local media earlier this year. Nearly 30 of them have been killed while another 40 or so have returned to Bosnia. The issue has touched most of the Balkan region, including Serbia, Kosovo and Albania, where similar trials have opened in recent months and where legislation has also been tightened.

About 40 percent of Bosnia's 3.8 million people are Muslim, the vast majority of them moderates. The rest of population are mainly Orthodox and Catholic Christians.    (AFP)

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