US officials accused of undermining Bosnian crackdown on ex-mujahidin
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - June 16, 2009, Tuesday

Text of report by Bosnian Serb state-owned daily Glas Srpske, on 11 June

[Unattributed report: "Aiman Awad Set Free"]

East Sarajevo - Aiman Awad, an ex member of the El-Mujahid Brigade, has been released from custody in the Immigration Centre in Lukavica on orders from the Court of Bosnia-Hercegovina.

On 2 June, the Court of Bosnia-Hercegovina overturned the ruling of the Naturalized Citizenship Revision Commission stripping Aiman Awad of his Bosnia-Hercegovina citizenship.

Awad was released on Tuesday [9 June] from the Immigration Centre where he had been held in custody for over a month. He was arrested in Zenica on 4 May in a joint operation to apprehend persons of Afro-Asian origin who were staying in Bosnia-Hercegovina illegally.

Aiman Awad, also known as Abu Aiman, was the officer in charge of security in the El-Mujahid Brigade.

Awad's release, behind which is First Deputy High Representative in Bosnia-Hercegovina Raffi Gregorian, was designed to prepare the ground for the release of the remaining detainees from the same centre, Dzevad Galijasevic, a member of the South East Europe Anti Terrorist and Organized Crime Expert Team, insists.

Galijasevic said that "Awad's release amounts to support for war criminals, terrorists, and radical Islamists in Bosnia-Hercegovina."

He told Srna [news agency] that Awad was directly involved in the most brutal war crimes committed in Bosnia-Hercegovina and was the highest profile detainee in the Immigration Centre in Lukavica.

He was and still is an intelligence officer and works for the Syrian intelligence service which is Iran's eyes and ears in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Galijasevic stressed.

[Box] Action

Asked why Bosnia-Hercegovina's police agencies had halted their operation launched in May to apprehend individuals of Afro-Asian origin, Galijasevic said that it was done with blessings from some US officials on the ground.

Source: Glas Srpske, Banja Luka, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 11 Jun 09
Posted for Fair Use only.