German anti-terror laws

The new draft laws make it illegal for people to provide instructions on how to commit serious violent crimes. This includes distributing information on the Internet on how to build bombs. Furthermore, suspects convicted of teaching or undertaking training in terrorism camps could be sent to prison for ten years.

The Federal Justice Minister, Brigitte Zypries, said that the law completes the grand coalition's criminal reform agenda. “Even criminals who have no direct ties to a terror organisation can now be put behind bars,” she said. Authorities must, however, provide evidence that such individuals actually intend to carry out an act of terrorism.

It is precisely the obligation to prove intent that may cause the widely publicised new laws to be blocked in the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament. The SPD/CDU-CSU coalition does not have an absolute majority there and will need support from the smaller parties: the FDP, the Greens and the Left. All three parties voted against the new laws in the Bundestag on Thursday.

Proving intent is almost impossible, says police union

The head of the police union, Konrad Freiberg, told the Friday edition of the local daily, the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger, that he believes the laws will be almost impossible to implement. “If there is evidence that someone has completed a training course in terror, that should be sufficient to send that person to prison. But it will be almost impossible to prove additionally that that person was planning to carry out a terror attack," he said.

wl/dpa/afp

Editor: Susan Houlton