Returnees from Syria and Iraq: New terrorism indictments by year-end, 20 people already convicted

After taking over as Acting Chief Prosecutor of the BiH Prosecutor's Office at the end of September 2016, Gordana Tadić held her first meeting last week with members of the Task Force for Combating Terrorism, writes the BiH news agency Patria.

The meeting of the Task Force was attended by heads and representatives of police and security agencies at the state and entity levels: SIPA, the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies, the Intelligence-Security Agency of BiH, the Service for Foreigners' Affairs of BiH, the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska, the Federal Police Administration of BiH, and the Border Police of BiH.

The Task Force met in the days when dangerous messages were sent from Croatia that BiH is a "hotbed of radicalism" and that "thousands of ISIL fighters are returning to BiH." Statements by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarović were a wake-up call for the dormant group and Prosecutor Tadić, who heads it. The importance of cooperation between BiH and partner agencies in the region and the world in combating terrorism, as well as preventing activities that may be related to terrorism, was emphasized.

The BiH Prosecutor's Office announced that new indictments for terrorist offenses related to departures to the battlefields of Syria and Iraq are expected by the end of the year.

The Minister of Security of BiH, Dragan Mektić, presented data last week stating that criminal proceedings are underway against 26 individuals, and 20 people have already been convicted and sentenced to prison. He also stated that 115 BiH citizens are in the Syrian-Iraqi battlefield, and 65 have been killed. Mektić also said that in the last six months, there have been no departures of BiH citizens to foreign battlefields, and that the data he has does not indicate any terrorist threat or activity in BiH.

Armin Kržalić, director of the Center for Security Studies, stated that BiH was among the first in the region to classify departure to foreign battlefields as a criminal offense. The largest number of men leaving BiH was in 2014.

"Since that period, we have seen a trend of stopping BiH citizens from leaving for foreign battlefields. BiH can boast of being the country in the region that has stopped this trend, so that in the last 8 months, we have had no cases of departure," said Kržalić.