A New York court yesterday sentenced Mirsad Cadic to life in prison for recruiting fighters for the Islamic State jihadist organization.

According to the indictment, Cadic mainly oversaw the recruitment and deployment of new fighters to areas of Syria and Iraq controlled by the Islamic State. Among them was an 18-year-old Australian, Jake Bilardi, a suicide bomber who was killed on March 11, 2015 in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, killing 30 soldiers.

Born in Kosovo and a resident of New York until 2013, when he traveled to Syria, Mirsad Cadic “sent thousands of radicalized volunteer fighters from Western countries into areas controlled by the Islamic State in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East,” a US document said. Ministry of Justice.

One of them was Ruslan Asaynov, born in Kazakhstan and also a resident of New York before being recruited as a “sniper” to fight in the ranks of the Islamic State in Syria. Asainov was arrested and brought to justice in the United States, he was found guilty last February and is facing a life sentence.

Mirsad Cadic, believed to be a high-ranking Islamic State official, was also part of the team tasked with the jihadist group’s social media propaganda campaign. On Twitter alone, he managed more than 120 accounts.

Since 2017 he has been living in hiding in Bosnia. He was arrested in Sarajevo, from where he was extradited to the United States.