Did these guys and Daniel Patrick Boyd call each other? No, we periodically see accused jihadists who find themselves in court refusing to recognize the court’s authority to try them. After all, the fundamental aim of jihad is to impose Islamic law, which would do away with non-Islamic legal institutions.
Fortunately, as much as they refuse to acknowledge laws other than Sharia, they may yet find the prison walls the courts put them behind to be quite real. An update on this story. “Bosnia Muslim bombing suspects defy court,” by Maja Zuvela for Reuters, February 9 (thanks to Twostellas):
SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Four of six Bosnian Muslims indicted on terrorism charges in a 2010 deadly bomb attack refused to enter pleas on Wednesday in a show of defiance of the Bosnian state court.
Prosecutors in December charged Haris Causevic, Adnan Haracic and Naser Palislamovic with carrying out the attack on a police station in the central town of Bugojno which killed one policeman and injured several others.
The men aimed to intimidate the population, coerce the police and destabilize the country, the indictment said. The remaining three men were accused of helping the prime suspects after the attack.
Causevic and Haracic pleaded “not guilty” and Judge Tatjana Kosovic entered not-guilty pleas for others after they said they did not recognize the court.
Palislamovic failed to turn up at the hearing.
“My client does not want to show up and I was told that he does not recognize this court,” his lawyer Izet Bazdarevic said.
One of the suspects, Haris Spago, went further after the judge refused to allow him to give a prepared 10 minute speech and said: “You may enter the plea instead of me but I will not sign any document that has the insignia of this court.”
Most of the suspects sported long beards and caps typical of followers of the radical Sunni Muslim Wahhabi sect, which has taken root in Bosnia under the influence of Muslim foreigners who fought alongside Bosnian Muslims during the 1992-95 war.
The indictment said the three main suspects planned to attack the police station “in a premeditated attempt to kill several individuals and cause material damage, knowing that many policemen would be in the building to provide security for a religious event on June 27.”
The bombing was one of the most serious security incidents in Bosnia since the war ended. Police have recently stepped up efforts to curb small but vocal Wahhabi groups.