Luxembourg sentenced in absentia three IS militants to 15 years in prison

13 years after the mass influx of Westerners into the ranks of the "Islamic State" (IS) began, the Luxembourg judicial system has put a bold legal stop to one of the most high-profile and painful cases of international terrorism. On 12 June 2025, in an unprecedented trial, the criminal chamber of the Grand Duchy Court of Justice found Benisen Rasiti and brothers Denis et Anes Osmanovic guilty of involvement in a terrorist organisation. They were sentenced in absentia to 15 years' imprisonment each, exactly the amount demanded by the prosecution.

According to prosecutors, all three left Luxembourg in the early 2010s to join IS militias in Syria and Iraq. Although the court failed to prove that they were personally involved in the killings, the prosecution insisted that they be recognised as "foreign terrorist fighters", a criminal offence in itself.

Benisen Raciti, who was born in Luxembourg, and the Osmanovic brothers, who were from Bosnia but lived in the Duchy, were not present at the trial - they are presumed dead. Nevertheless, the court went ahead with the trial in absentia, relying on witness testimony, intelligence reports and digital traces left on social media and phones. As of 2025, if they were alive, they would have been 31, 38 and 35 years old respectively.

The prosecutor at the hearing emphasised: "They clearly demonstrated their intention to go to the conflict zone and took part in the fighting with weapons in their hands. Even if we cannot prove specific killings, participation is already a crime.

The trial was not only a legal precedent, but also a reflection of a broader dilemma: how European countries, including Luxembourg, deal with the consequences of the radicalisation of their citizens who have gone to terrorist groups, and whether justice and historical memory can go hand in hand even when the figures are already dead.