Dean Korajlic on the Croatian president's statements: Fight against terrorism requires accurate data

The storm created by the statements by Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic who said that 'thousands of ISIL warriors are returning to BiH' has not calmed down. The first to respond to her statements was BiH Security Minister, Dragan Mektic, who denied the allegations as 'malicious assertions and nonsense'.

- The statements of this kind by high ranking officials can only foster mistrust of citizens, Dean of the Sarajevo Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security, Nedzad Korajlic opines. 'We can combat any form of criminality, in this case, terrorism, only if we work together and if we exchange information that has to be accurate and objective', he emphasized.

According to the data presented by minister Mektic, there are 115 BH citizens involved in fighting in Syria and Iraq. Out of 46 of them who returned to BiH, 20 are serving prison sentence, while the other 26 are undergoing court trial.

Armin Krzalic, Director of Center for Security Studies says that BiH was among the first countries in the region to characterize participation in foreign wars as criminal act.

- Although the biggest number of men from BiH went to fight in foreign wars in 2014, the number does not come even close to the one mentioned by Croatian president, Krzalic said to TV1.

He also said that from 2014, there has been a decreasing tendency of BH citizens going to foreign wars.

- BiH can be proud of being the country that has taken control of the problem; in the last 8 months we have had no cases of BH citizens going to the foreign wars, Krzalic concluded.