Having held a guilty plea agreement consideration hearing and a sentencing hearing, on 23 June 2020 the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered a judgment in the Muharem Dunić case, finding the accused Muharem Dunić guilty of the criminal offense of Illegal Establishment and Joining Foreign Paramilitary or Parapolice Formations under Article 162b(2) of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Court sentenced the accused Muharem Dunić to 3 (three) years and 6 (six) months of imprisonment.
The time the accused spent in pre-trial custody since 19 December 2019 shall be credited towards his sentence of imprisonment.
The accused Muharem Dunić was found guilty that in August 2014 he devised a plan, collected the necessary information, secured the necessary funding and agreed with other persons to take their families and go to Syria, and join ISIL, or the so-called Islamic State in the territory of Syria and Iraq.
He left the territory of Austria, where he was hired for temporary work, via Vienna International Airport, on a Vienna-Istanbul flight, from where he crossed the Turkish-Syrian border and entered Syria. According to the Indictment, during his stay in Syria the accused Muharem Dunić took part in terrorist activities for the needs of the terrorist organization of ISIL, which include grave breaches of international humanitarian law and the laws and customs of warfare. That is where he stayed until December 2019, which is when, following their military defeat, he and the remaining ISIL members in Syria surrendered to the Kurdish and allied troops in the town of Baghuz, Syria.
