Seven men jailed for joining terrorist organization

“These men were found guilty of having left Bosnia in 2013 and 2014 and joining the ranks of the Islamic State terrorist organisation,” said judge Mirsad Strika, reading the verdict.
“They participated in terrorist activities, they admitted to have been on Syria’s territory and that their goal was to fight the regime of Bashar al-Assad,” Strika said, referring to the Syrian president.
The first defendant Enes Mesic, jailed for three years, is considered a particularly radical Islamist belonging to the hardline Wahhabi community in Bosnia’s northeastern village of Dubnica.
Out of the seven convicted jihadists, only Ibro Delic, sentenced to a 23-month jail term, was in the court to hear the verdict. The others, all under house arrest, were represented by their lawyers.
Two defendants, each sentenced to 22 months in jail, were also found guilty of illegal possession of arms, including an automatic rifle and a dozen hand grenades.
A radical Bosnian Islamic leader, Husein Bosnic, sentenced by a local court in 2015 to seven years in prison, has received the most severe punishment in Bosnia so far among those charged with having fought alongside jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
The departures of Bosnians to Syria and Iraq have nearly stopped, although some 200 people were still there in mid-2016, out of a total 330 that had left, including many women and children, according to authorities and official figures.
Around 40 people have been killed while some 50 have returned to Bosnia.
Some jihadists have pleaded guilty and were sentenced to a symbolic one-year jail term, after an agreement with the prosecutor.