"Understanding faith differently is everybody's right. We can or cannot agree with them but we have no right to prosecute anybody as long as they do not violate the law. Those are basic tenets of the Islam as well as of the civil society," Ceric said in an interview with the Dnevni Avaz daily on Wednesday ahead of Ramadan Bairam.

Claiming that Wahhabis and Salafis were exposed to witch-hunt, Ceric ruled out the engagement of the Islamic community in this campaign against radical Islamist groups.

"Those who ask us to distance ourselves from some individuals and groups imply our connection with those individuals and groups and demand that we should take over responsibility for something with which we have no connection. We also have no legal basis to control or sanction them," the Bosnian Grand Mufti said.

Following a terrorist attack against a police station in Bugojno on 27 June when a police officer was killed and several were wounded and the subsequent arrest of a few followers of radical Islamic groups, the Bosnian intelligence and security agency's head Almir Dzuvo warned that there Bosnia had registered nearly 3,000 people who could be linked with radical Islam and whom he described as a potential threat to the country's security.

Dzuvo urged the parliament to adopt more clear legislation enabling the arrest and questioning of such people. On that occasion he accused some from the Islamic community of supporting those radical movements.

Ceric told the Dnevni Avaz that such a statement had disturbed not only Muslims but also all citizens in the country.

"I do not know why those people have not been arrested to date if they are really terrorists," Ceric said.

He called on the intelligence agency to publish a list of those suspects and unequivocally state what they are charged with in order to remove suspicion from Bosnian Muslims.