Two Bosnians jailed for plotting Islamist attack on state police

Bosnia's state court on Thursday sentenced two radical Islamists to four and 2-1/2 years respectively in prison after convicting them of plotting a terrorist attack on security police. Maksim Bozic, an Orthodox Serb convert to Islam, and Edin Hastor, a Bosniak Muslim, both members of the ultra-conservative Salafi movement, were found guilty of cooperating with unnamed persons in obtaining weapons and an explosive device.

Prosecutors said the pair planned an attack on the headquarters of the State Protection and Investigation Agency in Sarajevo and the interior ministry of the northern canton of Tuzla. They were arrested in 2018 and police seized grenades, automatic weapons, combat vests, and other military equipment.

The great majority of Bosnia's Muslims are moderate but some have adopted radical Salafi Islam under the influence of foreign fighters who came to the country during its 1992-95 war to fight alongside Muslims against Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. Some of them have formed groups which Bosnia's moderate national Islamic organization is seeking to dismantle.

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