Convention needed for war on terror

VARIOUS individuals have protested against the killing of Osama bin Laden while unarmed on the grounds that this was against the law.

But this overlooks the fact that the law must be appropriate. Criminal law patently failed to produce justice for the victims in major terror incidents such as 9/11, Lockerbie, Omagh and the Air India 182.

The reason being that it was never envisaged that it would be used in these circumstances.

In criminal law the prosecution has to prove that a crime has been committed and that the accused person is implicated.

But the typical terrorist attack involves an explosion which destroys almost all the evidence and spreads the rest of “the crime scene” over a wide area of countryside, the bottom of the ocean, or buried in the debris of a building. If a terrorist is directly involved he or she is dead. When a criminal takes its own life in the course of a mass murder, criminal proceedings seldom follow. The police “are not looking for anyone else”.

Alternatively, the explosion is triggered by a timer or remote control and the operator is at a considerable distance.

Those primarily responsible cannot be connected with the crime scene because they were never there. Criminal investigations are usually retrospective.

They only begin after the crime has been committed. In anti-terrorist operations the aim is pre-emption.

Criminal Law operates on the principle that it is better that ten guilty individuals go free than have one innocent person be convicted. This demands the highest standard of proof.

In these circumstances convictions are near impossible to obtain. In anti-terrorist legislation the reverse should apply.

It is better that 10 innocent people lose their liberty temporarily, than that 50 lose their lives permanently.

Terrorists regard themselves as being at war, and it is the Rules of War that provide the appropriate legal framework.

When a country declares war its citizens forfeit most of the protection taken for granted in peacetime.

That should apply to members of a terrorist organisation, bearing in mind that they have placed themselves voluntarily in that position.

If this proves to be a disincentive to joining the organisation, so much the better.

In war, the opponent’s nationals can be “interned” indefinitely without the need to bring any evidence, other than that of nationality, against them.

The present situation whereby each country makes its own rules is clearly unsatisfactory, and results in international friction.

Therefore, I suggest that what is required is an international convention, similar in nature to the Geneva Convention, that would set out international rules on how anti-terrorist operations should be conducted.

AHP Crosbie

Cobh

Co Cork