Bosnian ISIS Backer Avoids Jail by Paying Fine (19.12.2016) BIRN

Bosnian ISIS Backer Avoids Jail by Paying Fine

Haris Rovcanin

Sarajevo

BIRN, Detektor.ba

December 19, 201616:10

Nedzad Mujic, alias Ebu Mubarek, sentenced to one year in prison for giving financial and other types of support to Islamic State fighters, paid a fine instead of serving his entire jail term.

Nedzad Mujic, alias Ebu Mubarek. Photo: Bosnia and Herzegovina Court

Mujic’s sentence was reduced by the amount of time he had already spent in custody and he paid a further 26,000 Bosnian marks (over 13,000 euros) to avoid serving any more jail time, his lawyer told BIRN on Monday.

“Mujic spent 99 days in detention until the completion of all the procedures. When we deducted all those days, he paid the amount of 26,600 [Bosnian marks] to the Bosnian state court’s account,” his lawyer Senad Dupovac said.

After the state court accepted a plea bargain which Mujic struck with the prosecution, he was sentenced in October to 12 months in prison for travelling from Austria to Syria several times from September 2013 to mid-2015 and offering financial and other types of support to Islamic State and participating in its activities.

In a separate case on Monday, another man sentenced to one year in prison for taking part in the war in Syria had his appeal against paying his court costs rejected.

The defendant, Fikret Hadzic, had also made a plea agreement with the state prosecution and admitted his guilt.

Dupovac, who was also Hadzic’s defence lawyer, said that his client had been dismissed from his job and that his former employer had not paid his pension contributions for ten years and that no other company wanted to recruit him due to his age.

Dupovac filed evidence to the court’s appeals chamber which he said proved that Hadzic had no income or property, and was unemployed.

“Fikret Hadzic was cooperative during the trial. He signed the agreement. He publicly said going to Syria was a mistake and he chose a year in prison,” Dupovac said.

The state court in July accepted an agreement under which Hadzic admitted that he travelled to Syria via Istanbul in the summer of 2013 and that he fought in Syria. He was sentenced to one year in prison.