About thirty men and fifty women and children were not under special security measures after they returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) from the battlefields in Syria and Iraq.
One of the returnees convicted of terrorist activities said that “no one from any institution ever contacted him” after his release from prison.
Arrested again for planning an attack on a mosque
One of the returnees from Syria and a possible returnee to prison is Mirza Kapic. In 2017, he was sentenced to one year and ten months in prison for activities related to terrorism, which he served.
However, Kapic was again arrested on August 7th, 2023, and is suspected of “contacting members of the radical structures of the so-called Islamic State”.
The BiH Prosecutor’s Office accuses him of “requesting from them instructions for the production of an explosive device with a detonator via mobile phone, expressing the intention to attack scholars of the Islamic Community of BiH who publish proclamations against the Mujahideen and report supporters of radical movements to police agencies in BiH”.
Why is it necessary to monitor returnees?
Armin Krzalic, professor at the Faculty of Criminalistics, Criminology and Security Studies of the University of Sarajevo (UNSA), spoke with Mirza Kapic after his release, and with 24 other returnees from Syria, working with colleagues Nedzad Korajlic, Aida Krzalic and Benjamin Plevljak on research on this topic.
Krzalic says that every returnee from Syria was a witness, but also a victim of violence, rape, and execution, in combination with other consequences of living in a war zone, the authorities recommended that special psychological monitoring of these persons by expert therapists is necessary.
Whose responsibility is the rehabilitation process?
The national level of government transferred most of the work to the municipal centers for social work, mental health, and employment through resocialization plans.
However, in the same plans, the authorities admit that people who returned from Syria, including those convicted, “rarely sought help from centers for social work, and ‘almost never’ from mental health centers.” Legally, they don’t even have to.
“No one called them for years until we visited them,” said Krzalic, Radio Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
