SARAJEVO: Three men accused of attacking the US embassy in Bosnia were ordered out of court as their trial began on Friday after they refused to stand when judges entered, saying they obeyed only God’s law.
Mevlid Jasarevic, 23, fired on the US embassy in downtown Sarajevo for 50 minutes with an automatic rifle last October, seriously wounding one police officer before a sniper injured him and he was arrested.
Two other men are accused of helping him obtain weapons and prepare the attack.
The attack ignited fears over the radicalization of Muslims in an impoverished country still recovering from the Balkan wars of the 1990s and trying to integrate with the West.
Jasarevic, Emrah Fojnica, 20, and Munib Ahmetspahic, 21, were charged in April with forming a terrorist group in the northeastern village of Gornja Maoca, home to adherents of the strict Wahhabi branch of Islam, and of conspiring to conduct a terrorist act.
Jasarevic’s lawyer said his client admitted carrying out the attack but that he had not wanted to hurt anyone, so denied both terrorism charges. Lawyers for the other men said their clients denied both charges and had nothing to do with the attack.
CAPS
On Friday, all three men refused to stand up when the panel of three judges entered the courtroom in Sarajevo and to take off small caps they wore as part of their traditional Wahhabi outfits. Defendants are required by law to stand when judges enter and to be bare-headed during proceedings.
After being warned by presiding judge Branko Petric, they removed their caps, but still refused to stand.
“The problem is that your court represents laws invented by people,” Jasarevic said. “Muslims are forbidden to respect a court invented by people, they may respect only Allah.”
Petric declared them to be in contempt of court and they were escorted out by guards.
After their exit, prosecutor Dubravko Campara said his team would prove the trio was an “organized terrorist group” conspiring to attack state institutions and foreign diplomatic missions in protest against NATO intervention in Afghanistan and other international policies they disliked.
He said the three men had obtained a large amount of weapons and ammunition and other military equipment, that Jasarevic had agreed to conduct the attack and that the others had agreed to hide the evidence.
The trial is due to reopen on July 3, but Petric said the men would be allowed to attend only if they stood up when the judges entered court.
Accused ordered out of Bosnia embassy attack trial
