14 May 1999
(Experts stress close working ties with other countries) (980) By Susan Ellis USIA Staff Writer Washington -- To combat growing terrorist acts directed against the United States or its citizens abroad, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been granted increased territorial jurisdiction to conduct investigations outside the United States, Dr. Wayne Zaideman, the FBI's chief of International Terrorism Analysis, told a group of lawyers and others dealing in the legal perspectives of counter-terrorism strategies May 13. "Extra-territorial investigations have doubled" over the last few years, Zaideman said, adding that in order to effect successful prosecutions, agents must develop close working relationships between the FBI's legal attaches and their counterparts in the host country. "This relationship has to be built on a foundation of trust. We are not allowed to conduct investigations in a unilateral manner, therefore we are totally reliant on the liaison with our host countries' police and intelligence services," he said. Conducting international training initiatives is another part of the FBI legal attache's job, Zaideman noted. "This has the function of teaching investigative techniques and principles to promote law enforcement in host countries and facilitates networking, cooperation and institution building. We want to help establish and foster the rule of law in newly-democratic governments and establish a sensitivity to human rights." Since the bureau has no legal jurisdiction to conduct unilateral investigations abroad, such actions have to be done with the cooperation of other agencies. "We have to adhere to all foreign laws and protocols, so each host country determines the kinds of activities that can be conducted," Zaideman stressed. Extradition is one of those activities, a process by which "a person found in one country is surrendered to another country for trial or punishment. This is regulated by treaty," he said. "The responsibility lies with the U.S. Department of Justice operating with the Department of State." Potential complications include those cases where a subject "is a national of the country of refuge and that country does not extradite its nationals." Zaideman cited the recent example of a Maryland man accused of murder and found to be a national of Israel and not extraditable to the United States. In that case, he said, "the plan is to have the prosecution take place in Israel." He cited other problems such as the situation where a crime committed in the United States is not considered a "crime" in the country of refuge. "An example would be money laundering, which (in some countries) is not a violation of the law as it is in the United States." Also there are differences between countries in the length of time the statute of limitations runs, he said, as well as classifications of crimes where in one country a "crime charged may be a political offense, qualifying the fugitive for asylum." Michael Kraft of the State Department's office of counter terrorism, says specific terrorist acts trigger the enactment of appropriate legislation and control measures. Following the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon and some aircraft hijackings, U.S. laws required the Federal Aviation Administration to inspect airports that are used by American carriers, he noted. "The Long Arm Statute which was passed in 1986 as part of a State Department bill was one of the provisions that opened the door for the FBI to start investigating overseas and making crimes punishable in American courts." The statute also enabled the United States to help other countries even in cases where no Americans were involved, he said, for example by permitting other countries to "use the FBI databank to piece together fragments of explosives used in attacks." That capability was only possessed by the United States and Great Britain at the time, he said. It also formed part of the rule of law which led to the development of a series of international laws, and was triggered by a series of terrorist attacks such as the Achille Lauro hijacking, which led to international conventions against terrorism on the high seas as well as acts of piracy. In the 1990s, one of the main problems has been figuring out ways to deal with terrorists who were raising money and were not necessarily sponsored by organizations, he said. The result was the Omnibus Terrorism Act passed in 1996. For the first time the U.S. government could designate foreign terrorist organizations and make it illegal for Americans to contribute money or other forms of material support to them, Kraft said. The present stage of counter-terrorism he exemplified by reading a news story saying that President Clinton "unveiled new legislation to combat terrorism by toughening penalties for unauthorized possession of harmful biological agents such as anthrax." The problem now, he said, is to refine and improve existing laws so as to broaden definitions to tighten up the law on possession of WMD, "primarily biological agents and we're working on chemical and nuclear weapons." "You don't need sophisticated systems to come up with these weapons," he noted, and said the challenge is now to encourage other countries to tighten up their laws. There is also the problem of enforcing laws and developing the international will, he said, adding that sanctions are also coming under challenge. "People sometimes ask me what is the most difficult problem in fighting terrorism," he said, adding "I think its one word: greed. By companies who want to do business with terrorists; by countries that have financial interests at stake; and groups that bribe their way into countries past poorly-paid immigration officials in the Third World." He said his department conducts an anti-terrorism training program that is "trying to improve the ability of friendly countries to both protect evidence and take steps against terrorists; to detect bombs; to improve (their) intelligence."