CHIEF PROSECUTOR HOLDS MEETING OF ANTI-TERRORISM TASK FORCE

Central topics pertained to the plan and analysis of activities undertaken to prosecute terrorist-related offences and to prevent potential threats of terrorist activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A meeting of the Task Force for Fight against Terrorism and Strengthening Capacities for Fight against Terrorism was held in the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, chaired by the Chief Prosecutor Gordana Tadić.

The meeting was attended by the respective entity-level Chief Prosecutors, BiH Minister of Security, Directors and senior officials of police and security institutions and agencies both from the state level and from the levels of the two entities and the Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as by other institutions involved in the work of this Task Force.

The Chief Prosecutor Tadić has informed the participants of the meeting that in this year, after a very short period of only a few months since their extradition to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which occurred by the end of the previous year, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina filed indictments against seven (7) persons charged with the criminal offences of terrorism and participation in foreign battlefields. Two of the accused persons plead guilty and signed a Plea Agreement immediately after the filing of the indictment, and final and binding judgments have been handed down in respect of these accused persons. 

There have been no delays in the prosecution of these cases during the COVID 19 pandemic, and activities related to the filing of indictments, extending custody and other activities have been carried out regularly in these cases.

So far, indictments have been filed against thirty-two (32) persons for criminal offences related to the participation in foreign battlefields, ten (10) of which were filed last year and this year. Currently, there are five (5) cases in the trial phase.

It is important to note that there has not been a single acquittal in terrorism cases related to the participation in foreign battlefields in Syria and that, so far, final judgments for a total term of about 60 years of imprisonment have been handed down. As regards the terrorism-related indictments, sentences of about 160 years of imprisonment have been imposed.

Prosecutors of the Section for Terrorism within the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina participate actively in international operations and have good cooperation with our partner countries in the fight against the threat of terrorism, which represents a global threat.

Also, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with its partner institutions and agencies, is working on several investigations related to the criminal offences of terrorism, including investigations pertaining to the criminal offences of smuggling of illegal migrants, which requires special attention of the competent institutions.

At the meeting of the Task Force, representatives of police and security institutions and agencies presented the work and the activities of their respective institutions and discussed the course of action in the fight against terrorism and the threat of terrorism in the coming period.

The meeting ended with a conclusion that good cooperation and exchange of information between the institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as at the international level, must continue to develop at the operational level in the future, in order to prevent and timely supress the threat of terrorism, and that work of each institution must be strengthened within its jurisdiction, with the aim of gathering evidence and prosecuting these criminal offences.