http://www.speroforum.com/site/print.asp?idarticle=13611 <http://www.speroforum.com/site/print.asp?idarticle=13611> Spero News Bosnia's foreign fighter dilemma Abu Hamza and three associates, all members of the radical Muslim Wahhabi movement, were arrested on 9 June after an attack on a house owned by Zijad Kovac in which three members of Kovac's family were wounded. Tuesday, January 15, 2008 ISA Bosnia plays a legal back-and-forth with foreign figthers from Islamic countries who arrived in the early 1990s and have never left, many obtaining citizenship on questionable grounds. The latest high-profile case has seen the citizenship of a Tunisian-born man labeled a national security threat revoked and the man slated for deportation; however, a Bosnian court has reversed that decision as it follows procedure by the book. A Bosnian court on 11 January reversed the government's decision to strip Bosnian citizenship from Tunisian born Abu Hamza, who has been linked repeatedly by security forces to criminal and radical Muslim groups. ISA experts reported in late December that Abu Hamza was one of the first candidates slated to be deported from Bosnia to his country of origin. After the Bosnian government's Commission for Citizenship Revision revoked the citizenship of Abu Hamza, also known as Karray Kamel bin Ali, in April 2007, he submitted an appeal to the Bosnian high court, arguing that the move violated legal procedures. When the commission revised his case, they found several irregularities. The commission discovered that Abu Hamza had given false identity information in his citizenship application and that he had falsely claimed that he was a member of the Bosnian Army at the time of application. The authorities have also labeled him a potential national security threat who maintains ties to figures with terrorist aspirations. However, based on the documentation presented by his lawyer, the court found that at the time of his citizenship application, Abu Hamza was commander of the El-Mujahid unit and that under Bosnian laws he had the right to gain citizenship through his marriage to a Bosnian woman, who left him after the war. This unit was under the official jurisdiction of the Bosnian Army during the war, though it operated autonomously and was comprised of foreign fighters from Islamic countries. In its decision, the court said there were legal elements proving that Abu Hamza had gained Bosnian citizenship legitimately and that an evaluation of whether any documents had been falsified did not fall under the commission's jurisdiction. Still, the court called for authorized institutions to investigate Abu Hamza's case further. However, Bosnian security forces have shown a keen interest in Abu Hamza for at least a decade. According to police information, Abu Hamza was part of a 15-20 member group hailing from the larger of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya who arrived in the central Bosnian cities of Zenica and Travnik in the summer of 1992. Living in Bosnia until 1998, Abu Hamza used several names and falsified documents, such as El Akil Abdellah Ahmed, born in Yemen; Bega Kamel, born in Libya; and five other names with Yemeni and Libyan documents, each with different places of birth and dates, all proved to be false. Some of those documents he used while applying for Bosnian citizenship. Initially, he became known to the Bosnian public after murdering Egyptian Hisham Diab, alias Abu Velid, in 1997 in Zenica. An investigation into the case later showed that the real Hisham Diab was still alive and an active member of an organization called "New Jihad." Diab was formerly a close associate of the radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The identity of the person Abu Hamza killed in Zenica remains unknown. After managing to evade arrest for three years, Abu Hamza was finally captured in Germany in 2000 and deported to Bosnia, where he was sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released in January last year. After his release, he become an "advisor" to his former cellmate, Jusuf Barcic, a self-proclaimed Bosnian sheikh who led several unarmed raids on mosques in Sarajevo, Tuzla and Zenica in early 2007, attempting to take control of them to the outrage of the local moderate Islamic community. Barcic also served a seven-month prison sentence for domestic violence. When Barcic died in a car accident in early May 2007, Abu Hamza assumed his role as an aggressive preacher calling for a return to traditional Islam, which is supported by radical Wahhabis in Bosnia. Bosnian police now believe that it was Abu Hamza who organized previous incidents in local mosques, rather than their original suspect, Barcic. Then, just weeks before ISA sources from the citizenship revision commission announced that Abu Hamza might be in the first group to be deported, since he was classified as threat to the national security, he was involved in a shooting incident in a village near Zenica. Abu Hamza and three associates, all members of the radical Muslim Wahhabi movement, were arrested on 9 June after an attack on a house owned by Zijad Kovac in which three members of Kovac's family were wounded. Police still do not have a motive for the attack at the Kovac home. The Kovac family is not known to have any criminal connections or to be involved in any religious matters. The family owns a small sawmill in Zenica. However, Zijad Kovac is a distant relative of Zahid Kovac, a Zenica prosecutor at the time when Abu Hamza was tried for the murder of Abu Velid. Speaking to local media, prosecutor Zahid Kovac said he did not believe that he was the intended target, but did not exclude the possibility that the attackers had come to the wrong address. Another theory put forward by police is that the attack was intended to end with the detention of Abu Hamza in order to prolong his stay in Bosnia through a court case. Should he return to Tunisia he would face another prison term, having been sentenced there to 13 years in absentia. On 30 November, a local court in Zenica sentenced Abu Hamza to two years and 10 months in prison for the assault on the Kovac home. Yet, Bosnian authorities released him the same day as his sentencing, citing overcrowded local prisons. Local media reported that security forces have remained on alert since and during the trial, in which Abu Hamza threatened the media, police and "all enemies of Islam." On 21 December, a court in Zenica ordered that Abu Hamza be incarcerated following the filing of a complaint the previous week by his ex-wife, who claimed he had assaulted her after his release. The prosecutor in the case, Sasa Sarajlic, also presented the court with threatening letters he received from Abu Hamza, according to local media reports. Since early 2006, some 600 naturalized Bosnian citizens from Islamic countries have had their citizenships revoked. However, authorities have been slow to act on international orders to have those in question deported to their home countries. On 16 December, Bosnian authorities deported Algerian Atau Mimun to his native country, after his citizenship was revoked following evidence that the he had contacts with some figures linked to terrorism. Mimun arrived in Bosnia in 1992 from Pakistan and according to Bosnian media reports, served as a trainer for mujahideen fighters in camps located in the Pakistan-Afghan border area. He gained Bosnian citizenship in 1994 due to his membership in the Bosnian Army and marriage to a Bosnian woman. Out of an estimated 6,000 Arab volunteers who arrived during the early stages of the war, some 1,500 gained Bosnian citizenship and the Bosnian Foreign Ministry estimates that around 1,000 remained in the country as naturalized Bosnians. After Mimun was deported, the Bosnian Security Ministry said no one else would be deported for the time being, citing the complicated legal procedure. The Bosnian court's decision on 11 January to reverse the citizenship ruling for Abu Hamza, which will reverse his deportation order as well, will likely throw a wrench in plans to deport others slated for the process. It is likely that those who have not been linked to specific crimes or have not been deemed threats to national security will follow in Abu Hamza's legal footsteps - a development undoubtedly supported by human rights groups who have criticized the deportation process. However, the international community, which has been pressuring the Bosnian government to deal with these war-time foreign fighters and their legacy, is certain to respond negatively. Copyright C 2008 Spero -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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