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The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court has rejected an appeal from Mirza Kapic against the verdict convicting him of planning to attack the Bosna mosque in Zenica in 2023 and upheld his four-and-a-half-year prison sentence, BIRN has learned.
Kapic was found guilty of planning the attack, which was aimed at seriously intimidating the population and destabilising society, with persons known to him, using the communications apps Telegram and Trema.
The verdict said that Kapic intended to cause mass panic, as up to 300 people attended the mosque daily, and up to 700 on Fridays.
As well as the jail sentence, he has been ordered to undergo mandatory psychiatric treatment.
The appeals chamber’s ruling, which BIRN has seen, said “the appeal objections are entirely unfounded, and the factual conclusions and the established verdict are correct”.
But defence lawyer Lejla Babic vowed to challenge the ruling, claiming a violation of the right to a fair trial.
“The explanation [of the verdict] does not contain a single legal argument,” she argued.
Kapic has already been convicted in a separate case of travelling to fight abroad.
He was sentenced to of one year and ten months in prison after he flew to Turkey in July 2013 and illegally crossed the border into Syria with the intention of fighting for the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. He was also convicted of the illegal possession of weapons.
