Court of BiH passes first sentences for joining ISIL

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina today passed first-instance verdicts on four BiH citizens for joining ISIL, writes the Patria News Agency.

The first defendant, Husein Erdić, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, Midhat Trako was sentenced to one year and six months in prison, while Nevad Hušidić and Merim Keserović were sentenced to one year in prison.

Erdić, Trako, Hušidić, and Keserović are accused of committing the criminal offense of illegally forming and joining foreign paramilitary or paramilitary formations. 

The indictment states that the defendant Husein Erdić, with the aim of joining a foreign paramilitary formation operating outside the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in early February 2015, organized and led, and agreed with persons known to him from Turkey, to organize the departure of two citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nevad Hušidić and Merim Keserović, from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the battlefields in Syria and Iraq, with the aim of their illegal joining the ISIL terrorist organization, and the defendant Midhat Trako, upon prior agreement with Erdić, gave Keserović and Hušidić money to buy plane tickets for the Sarajevo-Istanbul route, writes Patria.