Anti-Terror Laws

The worldwide threat of terrorist attacks includes Germany, according to the country's Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries.

"We cannot exclude a terrorist attack in our country," Zypries told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday, Sept. 18. "As regrettable as this realization is, it is unfortunately by no means new."

The justice ministry has therefore proposed new legislation, which would make the preparation of terrorist acts, as well as the instruction of such actions, a criminal offence. If convicted, offenders would face up to 10 years in prison.

Existing anti-terrorist laws no longer timely

The proposal comes after authorities arrested three men earlier this month for planning massive terrorist attacks targeting US nationals in Germany.

The justice ministry has been reviewing Germany's criminal law over the past few months to determine whether loopholes existed. The planned legislation would allow preparations ahead of terrorist attacks to be legally dealt with more systematically, Zypries said.

Existing German laws against terrorism could not be applied to terrorist acts today, the ministry said. Laws introduced to battle the militant, left-wing Red Army Faction (RAF) in the 1970s stipulated that a terrorist organization must have at least three members before its formation -- or support of the organization -- can be deemed illegal.

But terrorist structures have changed since then, the ministry said.

"As opposed to the RAF, Islamic offenders are often active without any firm connection to a hierarchically based group," it said in a statement.

Yet the related danger was nonetheless "considerable" and therefore needed to be punishable by law, it said.

Only explicit training for a terrorist act will be a crime

The first proposal to the new legislation stipulated that preparing a terrorist attack would be punishable by six months to 10 years in prison. This included acquiring weapons, chemicals or other substances in order to commit a violent offense. The proposal would also outlaw financing a terrorist attack.

This legislation would also cover, for example, a suspect charged with carrying out a bombing in Germany who had previously traveled to a terrorist camp to receive explosives training, or a person who took flight training in order to hijack an aircraft.

The ministry said, however, that the law would apply only to training with the specific intent to carry out a terrorist attack. This means that attending a training camp in itself would not necessarily be a crime. Prosecutors said the three men arrested in Germany on Sept. 4 trained at camps in Pakistan run by the Islamic Jihad Union.

The second proposal in the new legislation would criminalize publishing or acquiring instructions for attacks or bombs, for example, via the Internet. If the instructions were deemed to motivate others to commit attacks, the crime would carry a prison sentence of up to three years.

Zypries' proposals will now be coordinated within the federal government. A ministry draft will then be sent to Germany's 16 federal states before formulating a bill in parliament.