Bosnia Police Doubt Gunman's Link to Islamists

Claims that Enes Omeragic, the man who shot dead two Bosnian soldiers on Wednesday, was part of a radical islamist group, are unlikely, police in the Canton of Sarajevo said.

Muhamed Meco, his brother-in-law, was one of the suspected jihadist recruiters arrested last year in a police operation codenamed Damask.

Meco fought in Syria before returning to Bosnia in 2013, a source close to the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina told BIRN.

But Bosnian police say there are no known links between the guman, who has killed himself, and religious hardliners.

"It's a pity that rumours describing Omeragic as a salafist spread so quickly," a source from the police of the Canton Sarajevo, told BIRN on Thursday, calling the reports "without foundation".

Police said Omeragic was already known to the law enforcement forces. However, he was not classified as a dangerous person, only as a small criminal, drug addict and occasional dealer.

"Enes was absolutely not an Islamist fanatic," an woman living close to his house told BIRN. She appeared shocked by the events of Wednesday night and asked to remain anonymous.

"I've known Enes for 15 years and he was a fine, educated guy. I could never say anything wrong about him. I would never have expected him to commit such a crime," she said.

Omeragic, 34, was born in France, the director of the State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, Perica Stanic, said.

Police said his mother committed suicide 20 years ago and his grandmother raised him. He used to share the same building with his father, Sahin, and his stepmother, living on two different floors of the house in Sokolje, to the west of Sarajevo.

"I'm more sorry for the two soldiers than for my son," his father told the...