The Appellate Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rendered a second-instance verdict, which rejected the appeal of the State Prosecutor’s Office and Sena Hamzabegovic’s acquittal on the indictment for financing terrorist activities as unfounded.
As stated in the statement, the Appellate Panel passed a second instance verdict on May 25 this year, and Hamzabegovic was acquitted of the accusation that she committed the criminal offense of financing terrorist activities.
“The accused was acquitted because it has not been proven that she committed the criminal offense charged in the indictment of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH,” the statement said.
In January this year, Hamzabegovic was acquitted of the guilt that in the period from 2013 to 2018 she participated in collecting and providing financial assistance to BiH citizens who were on the foreign battlefields of Syria and Iraq, even though she knew that these people were fighting on the side of the armed forces, the forces of the so-called ISIL, including the Jahbet al-Nusra, the Al-Nusrah Front and other formations that have been declared terrorist organizations.
According to the indictment, Hamzabegovic traveled to Syria on several occasions, knowing that her husband Muradif Hamzabegovic was there, who participated in terrorist activities together with other BiH citizens, and that he used the money to finance those activities. 230,000 convertible marks (BAM) through transaction accounts in EURO, KM and CHF, which she handed over to her husband.
When explaining the verdict, Judge Branko Peric said that the key fact was whether the accused knew what the money she was withdrawing and which ended up with her husband was used for.
“Here we have a case of a wife who disposes of her husband’s money on the basis of a power of attorney, which originates from the expropriation of real estate. “She did not know that the money that ended up with Muradif Hamzabegovic would be used to finance terrorist activities,” Judge Peric said at the time.
There is no possibility of appeal against this verdict, BIRN writes.
