British in Bosnia to probe 7 July terror link

British in Bosnia to probe 7 July terror link
ISN Security Watch - January 15, 2006

ISN SECURITY WATCH (15/01/06) – A source in the Bosnian State Prosecutor’s Office has told ISN Security Watch that British anti-terror investigators are due to arrive in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, this week to investigate a Bosnian link to the 7 July bombings of London’s transport network that killed 52 people, including the suicide bombers.

The high-ranking source said the British investigators were interested in four British citizens of Afro-Asian origin who had been under surveillance in Bosnia, one of which is believed to be the brother of one of the London suicide bombers.

British anti-terror investigators are scheduled to arrive in Bosnia on 19 January, the source said.

In late October 2005, Bosnian police arrested five teenagers on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks on Western embassies in Sarajevo. Only days later, police in Denmark arrested six teenagers believed to be linked to those arrested in Bosnia.

The first two men arrested in Sarajevo were identified as Cesur Abdulkadir and Mirsad Bektasevic, whose confiscated mobile phones and laptop computers led to the arrest in December of three more suspects in the Sarajevo suburb of Hadzici. One of the suspects is believed to be the leader of a Bosnian militant cell.

According to the State Prosecutor’s Office, at the same time that Bektasevic had arrived in Sarajevo from Sweden and Abdulkadir from Denmark, a young man of Afro-Asian origin with Danish citizenship arrived from Denmark.

Bosnian police alerted the Danish authorities after finding the Danish citizen’s contacts in the mobile phone and laptops confiscated from Bektasevic and Abdulkadir. The Bosnian police source said Danish police had revealed that a raid on the suspect’s parents’ home in Denmark had uncovered US$500,000 in cash, and that investigators were still tracing the money to determine its origin.

ISN Security Watch’s source in the Bosnian State Prosecutor’s Office, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said none of the suspects had yet been indicted, but that their period of detention, which was about to expire, would be extended as the investigation continued.

Also in late October, Bosnian authorities received information about the arrival in the western Bosnian city of Bihac of four British citizens of Afro-Asian origin, who were under surveillance for suspected radical Islamic activities in Britain, though there were no concrete suspicions.

After the first arrests were made in October, police temporarily lost the track of the four British citizens, but traced them to Sarajevo in December. According to the Prosecutor’s Office source, the four stayed in Sarajevo for approximately one month and then left the country. Bosnian police currently do not know their whereabouts.

“It appeared that one of those four people was the brother of one of the suicide bombers in the 7 July attacks on the London transport network, the senior Bosnian official told ISN Security Watch. “That is the reason for British officials’ visit [on 19 January],” he said.

The source would not reveal the name of the suspect believed to be the brother of one of the London suicide bombers.

A Bosnian Federation police official also told ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity that while the four British citizens were in Sarajevo, they spent most of their time at the Saudi-funded King Fahd Mosque, which is frequented by naturalized Bosnians from Arab countries and fundamentalist Bosnian Muslims who have joined the Wahhabi movement of strict Islam.

According to ISN Security Watch’s source in the Prosecutor’s Office, the four suspects had also visited the Sarajevo suburbs of Vogosca and Hadzici several times during their stay. The source said the investigation had shown that Hadzici appeared to be the base for a Bosnian, or even European, “terror cell”, and that one of the three people arrested in late November in Hadzici appeared to be their leader.

Amir Bajric, Bajro Ikanovic, and a third person whose identity has not been revealed, were arrested in Hadzici in late November. Prosecutors said that during the interrogation of Bajric they learned that he and the third unidentified teenager were members of the same extremist group as Bektasevic and Abdulkadir, who were arrested earlier in October. Bajric, Ikanovic, and the third unidentified teenager are suspected of having provided support and logistics for the alleged terror cell. Bosnian police seized 16 kilograms of explosives hidden by the unidentified 19-year-old in a forest near Hadzici.

The source from the Prosecutor’s Office said investigators believed that Ikanovic was the group’s leader, saying that the other two had referred to him as “boss” or “emir”. He said Ikanovic had refused to cooperate with investigators.

Police sources said Ikanovic, a 32-year-old Bosnian national, had no criminal record. During the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, he fought against Bosnian Serb forces as a member of the Al-Mujaheed Muslim unit, which operated on its own, outside the control of the Bosnian Army. The unit was largely comprised of Bosnian Wahhabis and fighters from Muslim countries.

A senior official in the Bosnian Federation police told ISN Security Watch that investigators were also following the movements of three other people in Sarajevo, suspected of having links to the alleged network.

“Those three people, all Bosnian citizens, never sleep in one place for more than a couple of days. Yet, all we can do for now is follow them because we have no grounds for tapping their phones or raiding their apartments,” the source said.

The source also said that one of the three suspects being followed had been arrested four years ago by NATO forces in Bosnia on suspicion that he was plotting attacks on a US military base in northern Bosnia.

A search of his home uncovered a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, three passports, and an Islamic last will and testament.

After pressure from human rights groups, who protested over the suspect’s detention for four months without the right to contact a lawyer and without evidence that he was plotting an attack on the US military base, he was released. He now lives in Sarajevo and either works at or owns a car wash in the suburb of Stup.

Bosnian police may face similar problems, as they have so far been unable to charge any of the five suspects arrested.

“Due to the fact that both Abdulkadir and Bektasevic have refused to cooperate with investigators and have denied that the weapons found in their apartment were theirs and that they were planning a terror attack, all we can do is examine the evidence from the apartment,” the source from the Prosecutor’s Office said.

Some 30 kilograms of explosives, dozens of guns, a suicide bombers vest, and a videotaped last will and testament were confiscated in raids on three apartments being rented out by the two suspects arrested in October.

The video tape shows the two men asking God for forgiveness for the sacrifice they were about to make. The two suspects are also shown making bombs, including one planted in a lemon and another planted in a tennis ball.

Police also found face masks worn by two of the suspects in the videotape and hair samples from those face masks believed to belong to one of the suspects. However, Bosnian forensics teams do not have the technical capability to analyze these samples.

The Bosnian authorities sent the videotape, a video camera, and other evidence to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which sources said were analyzing the samples.

The source said the FBI’s forensic tests had shown that the video camera was the same one used to record the confiscated video tape containing the bombing-making evidence and the last will and testament. The hair analysis is expected later this month. The voice samples from the videotape could not be verified, the Bosnian police source said.

The source also said that comparing the number of weapons found in the apartment rented by Bektasevic and Abdulkadir with the number of weapons seen on the videotape, it was clear that weapons and explosives were still unaccounted for.

In the last two months, the source said, police had conducted several anti-terror raids in forests near the town of Kakanj, in the Hadzici suburb, and in the Bjelasnica mountain area, near Sarajevo.

“We believe that the majority of missing weapons are located in an abandoned house in one of those three locations and that the videotape was made there,” the source said. However, so far, security forces have been unable to uncover the location.

(By Damir Kaletovic and Anes Alic in Sarajevo)

Damir Kaletovic is a Sarajevo-based correspondent for ISN Security Watch, and the co-host of Bosnian Federal Television’s “60-Minutes” political talk show. Anes Alic is the Southeastern Europe Regional Editor for ISN Security Watch. He is based in Sarajevo.