A Kosovo Albanian has been found guilty of terrorism by a federal court in Brooklyn, USA, after being accused of participating in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, recruiting ISIS fighters and providing weapons, equipment and performing intelligence services for the terrorist group.
It is about 40-year-old Mirsad Kandic from Peja, who had emigrated to the United States and had a residence permit. The verdict is expected to be announced in November this year and Kandic is expected to be sentenced to life in prison.
From the evidence presented by the courts, the Albanian had many responsibilities within ISIS, including recruiting foreign fighters, trafficking them from the west through Turkey to Syria, and providing weapons, military equipment, maps, money and fake identities to the fighters. of ISIS.
According to the testimonies of 36 witnesses and the evidence presented in court, Mirsad Kandic had tried to leave the United States for the Middle East since the summer of 2012. But, since he had not been allowed to fly twice in a row since the end of 2013. had traveled to Mexico and from there to Panama, Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Kosovo and Turkey to finally reach Syria, where he had joined ISIS fighting on the outskirts of Aleppo.
The ISIS leadership had subsequently sent Mirsad Kandic to Turkey to take on the role of fighter and weapons smuggler and to serve as emir for the group's media.
Officials say Mirsad Kandic is responsible for recruiting thousands of Westerners to fight in Syria and the Middle East, including Australian teenager Jake Billardi, a suicide bomber who blew himself up and killed more than 30 Iraqi soldiers and a police officer in Ramadi. of Iraq on March 11, 2015.
Mirsad Kandic was arrested in August 2017 in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, where, according to security agencies, he had entered with a forged Ukrainian passport.