“Never before has Bosnia-Herzegovina faced people who do not recognize its authority.” But it will again. And again. And again. Islamic supremacists do not recognize state authorities that are non-Muslim or do not rule according to Sharia. “Bosnian court: 18 years for US embassy attacker,” by Aida Cerkez for the Associated Press, December 6:
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) “” A Bosnian court on Thursday convicted a man who opened fire on the U.S. embassy of terrorism and sentenced him to 18 years in prison.
Mevlid Jasarevic shot at the embassy in Sarajevo for 50 minutes with an automatic rifle, injuring a local policeman before authorities shot him in the leg and arrested him. He said in a video made before the Oct. 28, 2011, shooting that he wanted to force NATO to pull out of Afghanistan and for Bosnia to stop harassing his Islamic sect.
Alleged accomplices Emrah Fojnica and Munib Ahmetspahic were acquitted. The court said the prosecution did not prove the three were an organized terrorist group. The Prosecutor’s office said it will appeal the acquittal.
All three are followers of the Wahhabi sect “” an austere brand of Sunni Islam that authorities in Bosnia see as a threat. The sect members claim not to recognize state authorities and have settled in Gornja Maoca, a village in north Bosnia which police have raided several times and found illegal stacks of weapons.
None of the three appeared in the courtroom for the verdict as they previously stated they do not recognize the court. Jasarevic has been in custody since the attack.
Explaining the verdict, judge Branko Peric said that Jasarevic’s sentence was the harshest the court has ever pronounced for terrorism and should serve as a warning.
“Never before has Bosnia-Herzegovina faced people who do not recognize its authority,” Peric said, adding that residents of Gornja Maoca neither vote at elections nor do they agree to be buried in communal cemeteries. They also teach their children according to their own curriculum.
“It doesn’t mean that such communities are terrorist camps but they do have such potential,” Peric said. “If there was no Gornja Maoca out of full state control, there probably would have not been Mevlid Jasarevic,” he said.
During the trial, Jasarevic often had to be removed from the courtroom because of his comments. During closing statements he declared that the judges can punish him but they won’t stop future attacks….