Kosovo Jails ISIS Facebook Propagandist

ISIS flag covering Balkan countries, portraying a 'Balkan Califate' | Photo from the Facebook profile of a Kosovar ISIS sympathiser

A Kosovo court has jailed an ISIS propagandist for seven months for engaging in propaganda for ISIS through his Facebook profile. The court said Samet Imishti from the town of Hani i Elezit had also been fined 800 euros.

Imishti is the first Kosovo citizen to be sentenced for engaging in online propaganda on behalf of terrorist organisations.

He is also the first Kosovar to be prosecuted and found guilty under a new law adopted in 2015 that makes it a crime to participate in wars abroad, including engaging in propaganda for terrorists.

Hani i Elezit is the region that accounts for the highest number of terror suspects in Kosovo – at least seven – according to prosecution indictments that BIRN has seen.

“Imishti encouraged individuals or groups of people to join armed formations of the ISIS terrorist organisation,” the court said.

According to the court, in Facebook posts and comments from May to November 2015, when he was arrested, he glorified ISIS fighters and called on Kosovo Muslims to join a jihad.

The court says Imishti posted a number of calls to action, writing: “All true Muslims are ISIS”, “I am ISIS”, “ISIS will liberate Kosovo”, “ISIS will be welcomed with flowers” and “Inshallah they start with Kosovo a.s.a.p.”

Around 100 people have been arrested in Kosovo since September 2014 on charges of active membership of, or affiliation to, Islamist groups including ISIS and Al-Nusra.

More than 50 are currently on trial. The latest estimates are that about 300 Kosovo Albanians have joined ISIS and Al Nusra.