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Republic Public Prosecutor’s Office of Republika Srpska
Prosecutors in Republika Srpska ended their investigation of Abidin Mehmedovic due to “a lack of sufficient evidence that he committed the crime of which he was suspected”, the Public Prosecutor’s Office told BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mehmedovic was arrested in the Zvornik area in December 2018 on suspicion that he committed the criminal offence of “forming and training a group with the aim of joining foreign terrorist organisations”.
Police in Zvornik, working with the Republika Srpska Interior Ministry’s Administration for Countering Terrorism and Extremism of the Interior Ministry, arrested Mehmedovic on suspicion that he had links to the Syrian conflict zone.
Zvornik police said at the time that during a search of Mehmedovic’s house, auxiliary buildings and cars, several cell phones, SIM cards, computers and documentation which could be associated with the criminal offence were seized.
The Republika Srpska Interior Ministry said that it has offered its operational and technical support for investigations into Bosnians who went to fight abroad, and has exchanged information with other security agencies in the country.
Over the past three years, the Interior Ministry said it has registered three criminal cases of “public incitement to acts of terrorism”. Three individuals have been charged with the offence; one of them has also been charged with financing terrorist activities.
In the same period, one suspect has been accused of “public incitement to terrorist activity”, the Interior Ministry added.
Republika Srpska’s criminal code envisages sentences ranging from six months to 15 years for the criminal offence of “forming and training groups with the aim of joining foreign terrorist organisations”.
So far, the Bosnian state court has sentenced 28 individuals to a total of 58 years and two months in prison in 19 separate cases for terrorism recruitment or going to or trying to go to fight in Syria. It has also acquitted one person of going to Ukraine to fight.
