ST. LOUIS (AP) - Bosnian community leaders in St. Louis, which has the largest population of refugees from the former Yugoslavia, say the arrest of three local residents on federal charges of aiding militant groups in Syria and Iraq tarnishes a community whose members have worked tirelessly to embrace their adopted homeland.
Ramiz and Sedina Hodzic of St. Louis County are among the six Bosnian immigrants living in Missouri, Illinois and New York who were charged last week with conspiring to provide material support to groups the U.S. deems terrorist organizations, including Islamic State and Nusra Front, an al-Qaida-affiliated rebel group.
The Hodzics are scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court, where prosecutors will argue against their release, pending trial. The couple is accused of using Facebook, PayPal, Western Union and the U.S. Postal Service to coordinate shipments of money and military equipment to the extremist groups.
Their arrests and that of a third St. Louis-area person, 37-year-old Armin Harcevic, provoked surprise and disappointment among the estimated 70,000-member Bosnian community, most of whom are Muslim and arrived after the war that broke out in the early 1990s.
Back then, Bosnia joined several republics of former Yugoslavia and declared independence, but a Serb minority opposed the move and took up arms in an attempt to expel and kill non-Serbs. About 100,000 people died.
The Islamic Community of North American Bosniaks affirmed its members' faith in the U.S. justice system in a statement issued Sunday and said it rejected "hatred or any kind of injustice to another human being."
"They are Bosnian, but they are not part of the real Bosnian community, said community leader Rusmin Topalovic, who owns a St. Louis cleaning company.
Ramiz Hodzic, 40, who also goes by the first name Siki, is charged with making 10 wire transfers totaling $8,850 and arranging two shipments of military supplies valued at $2,451, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Friday. His wife, a 35-year-old mother of three, is accused of aiding one of those transfers and also shipping six boxes of military supplies to an intermediary in Turkey.
Sedina Hodzic's attorney, Paul J. D'Agrosa, said she will plead not guilty, and expects federal prosecutors to fight efforts to release her on bail. Ramiz Hodzic's court-appointed public defender did not respond to several messages seeking comment.
It isn't clear whether the six who were indicted knew each other, or how they might be connected.
On Tuesday, a federal judge in Chicago refused to release Mediha Medy Salkicevic, a 34-year-old mother of four who's accused of providing three payments totaling $3,762, siding with prosecutors who described her as potentially dangerous and a flight risk. She will remain in custody and be escorted by federal marshals to St. Louis, rather than travel there on her own.
Since the indictment originated in St. Louis, all six defendants would be expected to face trial in that eastern Missouri judicial district, including those currently jailed elsewhere. If none plead guilty, they would likely stand trial together, though defense attorneys could ask the presiding judge to try some of them separately.
The other defendants are Jasminka Ramic, 42, of Rockford, Illinois; and Nihad Rosic, 26, of Utica, New York, which also has a large population of Bosnian immigrants. Ramiz Hodzic and Rosic are also charged with conspiring to kill and maim persons abroad.
Marc Raimondi of the U.S. Justice Department's National Security Division said this week that nearly 20 people in 2014 alone were charged with material support to terrorists alone, most for attempting to travel to Syria as foreign fighters.
Defense lawyers in similar cases have argued that the law under which the six immigrants are being prosecuted is overly broad and ensnares the misguided as often as it sweeps up the dangerous. D'Agrosa declined to discuss specifics about the case, but said his client and the other defendants were not part of a sophisticated plot.
"These are not international financiers," he said.