Kosovo jails eight for plotting to attack Israeli soccer team in 2016

I first spotted this in the Nigerian newspaper The Punch. The Israeli press, naturally have the story. The Irish Independent has the story directly from Reuters but nothing in the British press that I have noticed. 

PRISTINA (Reuters) – A court in Kosovo jailed eight men on Friday for plotting to attack the Israeli national soccer team in Albania in a World Cup qualifying match in 2016. 

The plan was thwarted when Kosovo police got wind of the plot and tipped off Albanian authorities who moved the game from a stadium in Shkoder, near the border with Kosovo, to a town closer to the Albanian capital, Tirana.

The prosecution said some of the defendants received orders to carry out an attack from Lavdrim Muhaxheri, a prominent Islamic State member from Kosovo and the self-declared “commander of Albanians in Syria and Iraq”. Muhaxheri was killed in Syria, police and family members say.

The group “decided to place explosives under a bridge at the entrance of Shkoder from the direction of the Rinas Airport . . .So at the time when the buses with the Israelis reached the bridge, the group equipped with the explosives planned to activate it from distance or blow themselves up along with the Israelis and police.”

The extremists — one Macedonian and the rest Kosovan — also planned attacks on Kosovan soil against political leaders and diplomats.

(L-R) Arton Ahmeti, Letorim Musliu, Besrat Peci and Kenan Plakaj walk in front of the court in Pristina 
If you saw those young men in a street in any city you wouldn’t immediately think “Jihadist!!!” They blend in. SE European jihadists have the potential to be the most dangerous of the lot in Europe.  

Group leader Visar Ibishi, 38, was sentenced to 10 years in prison while five other members were handed three to six-year jail terms each.

Ibishi and three close associates refused to appear in the courtroom, saying the court was “not interesting” for them.

Two members of the group who pleaded guilty at the beginning of the trial in the mid-2017 were sentenced to 18-month prison term each. The ninth member, who also pleaded guilty, was fined 2,500 euros ($2950)

Kosovo, with a majority ethnic Albanian Muslim population, has had no militant attacks on its home turf, but at least 200 people have been detained or investigated over offences related to Islamic State.

In 2015, Kosovo adopted a law introducing jail sentences of up to 15 years for anyone found guilty of fighting in wars abroad.