From 'EuropeNews': The EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TESAT) was established in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States as a reporting mechanism from the EU Council’s Terrorism Working Party (TWP) to the European Parliament.
Full report (850KB PDF) here: TESAT.
Excerpts From the Introduction:
The TE-SAT discusses terrorism from a law enforcement point of view, i.e. as a “crime”, although terrorism is fundamentally a political phenomenon driven by political motives and oriented toward political ends. The TE-SAT is a situation report which describes and analyses the outward manifestations of terrorism, i.e. terrorist attacks and activities. It neither attempts to analyse the root causes of terrorism nor to assess the threat posed by terrorism. Furthermore, the TE-SAT does not assess the impact or effectiveness of counter-terrorism policies and law enforcement measures taken, despite the fact that they form an important part of the phenomenon.
The TE-SAT is an EU report and, as such, aims at providing an overview of the situation in the EU rather that describing the situation in individual member states. It seeks to establish basic facts and figures regarding terrorist attacks, arrests and activities in the EU. The TE-SAT is also a trend report. Since a trend can be defined as a general tendency in the way a situation is changing or developing, the TE-SAT is a forward-looking report. As TE-SAT 2007 was the first report based on the new methodology, no comparison with previous years was possible. Consequently, TE-SAT 2008 is the first edition that attempts an analysis of trends.
Excerpts From the 2007 Overview:
4.1 Terrorist Attacks -- In 2007, nine member states reported a total of 583 failed, foiled or successfully executed attacks. This is a 24 percent increase from what was reported in 2006. Of the 583 attacks, 517 were claimed or attributed to separatist terrorist groups in Spain and France.
With regard to Islamist terrorism, two failed and two attempted attacks were reported for 2007. As in 2006, failed or attempted Islamist terrorist attacks took place in the UK, Denmark and Germany. Police investigations into the attempted attacks in Denmark and Germany have shown that the intended targets were likely to be located on their national territory. The failed and attempted attacks mainly aimed at causing indiscriminate mass casualties.
4.2 Arrested Suspects -- A total of 1044 individuals were arrested for terrorism-related offences in 2007. This is an increase of 48 percent compared to 2006. France, Spain and the UK have reported the largest number of arrests per member state. The number of arrested suspects for separatist terrorism has more than doubled in comparison to 2006. This increase is mainly due to the vast increase in the number of arrests in France and Spain. In 2007, Spain saw a seven-fold increase in arrested suspects: from 28 in 2006 to 196 in 2007. France went from 188 people arrested in 2006 to 315 in 2007, an increase of almost 68 percent.
Concerning Islamist terrorism, the number of arrested individuals decreased compared to 2006. In 2007, 201 persons were arrested for Islamist terrorism, compared to 257 in 2006. This decrease can mainly be attributed to a 35 percent decrease in the number of arrested (Islamist) suspects reported by France.
4.3 Convictions and Penalties -- In the course of 2007, 418 individuals were tried on terrorism charges in the member states, in a total of 143 proceedings... In general, it can be stated that the convictions relate to events which occurred before 2007. Of the 418 individuals, 34 were women. The vast majority of these were charged in relation to separatist terrorism.
Several interesting investigations and prosecution cases came to a conclusion in 2007. On 31 October 2007, the sentences in the trial against the suspected perpetrators of the 11 March 2004 attacks in Madrid were pronounced. The Spanish high court, the Audiencia Nacional, convicted three main defendants on charges of mass murder with a terrorist intent and other charges. In total, 21 persons were found guilty of participating in the Madrid bombings. For one of the convicted individuals, the sentences imposed added up to 42,952 years. However, the maximum time to be served in prison in Spain is 40 years.
The year 2007 also saw the conviction of four persons in relation to the failed bomb attacks on the London transport system on 21 July 2005. The four individuals were sentenced to life imprisonment which in the UK means 40 years. The UK also had its first conviction in relation to terrorism propaganda. The three men convicted had been found in possession of materials suggesting that they were involved in the production of terrorist propaganda. The suspects were also in possession of information on how to cause explosions or build bombs. On trial, the defendants admitted to having urged British Muslims to wage violent jihad against all non-believers. They were sentenced to six, eight and twelve years’ imprisonment, respectively.
In November 2007, the Danish high court convicted three persons for planning a terrorist attack in Denmark. The investigation showed that the men procured fertiliser and chemicals which could be used for producing peroxide-based primary explosives. Members of the group gathered large amounts of information on the Internet regarding the manufacturing of explosives and bombs. Two of the accused were sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment, while the third received a four-year sentence. The prosecution subsequently appealed the sentences to the Danish supreme court in order to get the sentences increased.
In Belgium, a network of intermediaries for al-Qaeda was successfully prosecuted in 2007. The prosecutors made use of a judicial decision in Italy: in 2007, the Italian supreme court held that the impact of individual terrorist actions needs to be seen in the wider criminal plan of a terrorist organisation. Sentences in Italy amounted to nine and six years; in Belgium, the five individuals were sentenced to up to ten years in early 2008.
No comments:
Post a Comment