Bosnian Terror Defendant ‘Went to Syria Because of Daughter’

Prosecution witness Ekrem Berbic told the state court that his brother Milarem Berbic went to Syria in 2014 or 2015 and that he saw him the night before his departure, but did not know how he got there.

“He told me he was going to his daughter’s in Syria, to be father to his child. He contacted me from the Turkish-Syrian border. We did not communicate with each other afterwards,” the witness said.

He explained he did not use a smartphone or online communication applications, so that was why he did not have direct contact with his brother, adding they were not angry with each other.

Prosecutor Elvira Stanojlovic presented the witness with a part of the statement that he gave during the investigation, when he said that the defendant “invited his wife and two sons to come, but they refused after having consulted him, so his brother was angry with him because of that.”

Ekrem Berbic responded that the question was not formulated well. He confirmed that the defendant called his wife and told her “it would be good if they could come”, but he was against the idea and thought they should not go, adding that later they “sent greetings to each other” through other people.

The witness said that his brother’s wife communicated with his wife and he recommended that his brother’s son not to go to Syria.

As for his brother Milarem, he said he “heard that he worked as a handyman there”.

“He repaired installations, built houses, improved living conditions after the shelling, that is what he did for a living I guess,” the witness said.

Responding to questions from the defence, Ekrem Berbic said that his brother’s daughter with her husband from Livno and three children travelled to Syria. They had another child there, her husband was killed three or four months later and then she had a fifth child.

“Knowing my brother well, he loves his family and he is extremely angry and emotional. He loves his daughter more than anyone. He went there because of his daughter, I am 99 per cent sure, with the intention of helping her. I don’t know the rest,” the witness said

He added that his brother’s daughter was supposed to return from Syria with her children together with the first group of Bosnian citizens who were sent back, but that she stayed there.

He said he saw his brother in a photograph with his grandchildren, but nobody had told him that he participated in battles, fought or shot at anyone in Syria.

Berbic is charged with having left Bosnia and Herzegovina on August 29, 2014 with the intention to join foreign formations fighting against the legitimate military authorities in Syria, where he joined a unit headed by a man called Goran Pavlovic which fought for Islamic State, after which he was captured by Kurdish forces.

At the same hearing on August 11, a State Investigation and Protection Agency investigator said he was involved in analysing a video entitled ‘Pride in Jihad’, which was published on the Ummet News website and was produced by Alhayat Media Centre.

Videos and screenshots, which investigators captured from the video were presented in the courtroom. The witness said the State Investigation and Protection Agency determined that 11 Bosnian citizens appeared in the video, some of whom were killed in Syria, while some were deported to Bosnia and Herzegovina and some were being held in Syrian prisons.

According to the witness, the video and photographs depicted defendant Milarem Berbic holding a rifle, as well as Jasmin Keserovic who was deported to Bosnia together with Berbic and is also now on trial for terrorism. Also in the video were Edin Alijev, who is in prison in Syria, plus Nermin Sabic, Nihad Berkovic and Ines Midzic. The witness said he determined their identity on the basis of data exchanges with partner agencies and witnesses’ statements.

“The witnesses confirmed that the Bosnian citizens belonged to Goran Pavlovic’s unit. I think that Emir Alisic, Hamza Labidi, Senad Hasanovic were members of that unit. The size of the unit changed constantly, and some of them belonged to more than one unit,” the witness said.

Alisic and Labidi were also deported alongside Berbic to Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are on trial separately for fighting in Syria.

The trial of Berbic will continue on August 17, when the witness will be cross-examined by the defence.