prijava
SARAJEVO, January 24 (FENA) - Munib Ahmetspahić, who is currently serving a three-year prison sentence for joining paramilitary organizations in the area of Syria and Iraq, is the first person in BiH to be declared by experts as “completely deradicalized.”
Ahmetspahić was sentenced in April 2019, after he admitted to joining paramilitary organizations and participating in battles and terrorist activities between 2013 and 2018.
He told the court he regretted his decision to go and fight in Syria and was manipulated into doing so.
“How naive it was from us to make such a decision. I would advise the youth to not fall for these things. Whoever wants to fight for justice should do so through legal means,” he added.
Experts say that the process of deradicalization is complex and that the same method will likely not work for everybody, as the processes of radicalization and deradicalization are individual and differ from one person to another.
Minutes later, he was sentenced to three years in prison after accepting a plea bargain for having fought in Syria. The decision Ahmetspahić made in May 2013 cost him a lot. He lost his brother who left for Syria together with him, his leg, years he spent on the battlefield and in pre-trial detention and the three years he was sentenced to.
The BiH Court has until now handed down rulings against 26 persons in 17 similar trials, yet Ahmetspahić’s case is unique.
He is the only foreign fighter who has been found to be completely deradicalized by expert testimony.
The deradicalization of Ahmetspahić was determined by neuropsychiatrist Abdulah Kučukalić, who, at the request of the BiH Prosecutor's Office, prepared the findings and the opinion.
"Based on our examination, we got the impression that he had no inclination toward pretending. His statement was authentic. He could have tried to soften it up, but he chose not to,” Kučukalić told the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).
Ahmetspahić was previously declared not guilty for having destroyed evidence in the case against Mevlid Jašarević, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for shooting at the building of the US Embassy in Sarajevo in 2011.
According to the indictment of the BiH Court, Munib Ahmetspahić went to the Syrian war on two occasions to join the terrorist organizations of Jabhet al Nusra, Al-Nusrah Front and ISIL, and fight for the so-called Islamic State organized in the territory of Syria and Iraq.
He became a member of the terrorist organizations of Jabhet al Nusra, Al-Nusrah Front and ISIL, which have been placed on the consolidated list of persons and entities connected to Al Qaeda, put together by the UN Security Council Committee.
(FENA) S. R.
