Bosnian Investigators Probed Suspected Video of Terrorism Defendant

Bosnia’s State Court. Photo: BIRN BiH

A protected prosecution witness told the state court in Sarajevo that he took part in a probe of a three-minute video entitled ‘Muslims from the Balkans post a video’ which was uploaded under the account name Abdulaziz on Telegram, trying to work out if they could identify defendant Jahja Vukovic.

“The video features three individuals talking, while a fourth person is seen recording. When we realised it was something that interested us, we informed a prosecutor. We stopped the video at certain intervals in order to make photos showing faces, arms and a flag,” the witness said.

The witness said the investigators assumed that one of the people in the video was defendant Vukovic because of his physique and because the name of the Telegram account, Abdulaziz, was the name that the defendant used while in Syria.

“We were unable to identify him, because his face could not be seen. We could see his physique and clothes. That is why I am saying it was an assumption,” the witness said.

On the request of Vukovic’s defence lawyer Senad Dupovac, the three-minute video was played in the courtroom.

It featured three people, two of which were introduced as Abdullah and Sandzakli.

The men in the video said things like “We are not intelligence agents” and “This is just amateurish”. After the video was shown, the defence claimed that it was not authentic.

Responding to a question from the prosecution, the witness explained that a flag similar to those used by Islamic State unit was spotted in the video, as well as a hand-held rocket launcher, a machine gun on the ground, and automatic rifles.

When asked by judge Dzemila Begovic whether he had identified any of the people in the video, the witness said that Sandzakli was from Serbia and that he “thought” his real name was Edin Ganovic.

The witness also confirmed to the defence that Vukovic had been deported from Turkey, not from Syria, and that his repatriation to Bosnia had been voluntary.

The second witness at the hearing also confirmed that he inspected the video posted on Telegram, but he did not take part in the identification of defendant Vukovic, except for hearing men in the video introducing themselves as Abdullah and Sandzakli.

The indictment alleges that Vukovic left Bosnia for Germany on June 16, 2014 and flew to Turkey two months later, then legally crossed the Syrian border.

While in Syria, he participated, under the name Abdulaziz, in terrorist activities, and provided assistance to and fought for Jabhat al-Nusra Front forces, together with other individuals from Bosnia who were in Syria with the same intention, the indictment claims.

At the end of the hearing, the prosecution argued that Vukovic should remain in custody in order to ensure the completion of the trial, while the defence requested the termination of the custody remand.

“He was taken to Syria by his stepmother at the age of 14 years and ten months. The prosecution does not deny that,” defence lawyer Dupovac said.

“The prosecution does not find it disputable that his father was killed in Syria seven or eight months later and his stepmother remarried. He fled Syria on his own when he had a chance to do it. That is why I proposed an expert examination, because his childhood and youth were ruined,” he added.

It was planned that a neuro-psychiatry expert would present his findings and opinion at the hearing, but this was postponed until a later date.

The trial continues on March 30.