Norway al-Qaida case highlights terror strategy
Some American officials have said they were frustrated that Oslo took so much time to move on the men picked up last week. From the Nordic perspective, however, the official action was swift and unusually assertive. In Norway, according to one terrorism expert, arrests are not normally the primary goal of police -- even in cases of alleged terrorism.
To bring a case to trial in Norway, and in neighboring Sweden and Denmark, takes much longer than in the U.S. and many European countries. One reason is the threshold for securing a conviction is very high -- in line with Scandinavia's defendant-friendly judicial tradition.
And low conviction rates make police hesitate to haul in suspects -- a source of friction with American and European intelligence partners.
"There is some frustration from other countries," said Magnus Ranstorp, a Swedish terrorism researcher at the Swedish National Defense College.
There's no doubt: Scandinavian authorities favor tactics that would raise eyebrows in other nations -- such as disrupting plots by telling suspects they know what they're up to, and warning them of the consequences.
Counseling potential terrorists may seem naive, but the tactic seems to have worked so far -- the Scandinavian countries haven't suffered a serious terrorist attack on their soil in 25 years.
The region has seen only about 35 terrorism-linked arrests since Denmark, Norway and Sweden implemented stricter terror laws after 9/11. By comparison, there were over 200 terrorism arrests made in the UK between September 2008 and September 2009, according to government statistics.
Of those arrested in Scandinavia, 24 have gone to trial and seven have been found guilty. Only three received sentences of more than 10 years in prison.
Norway's Police Security Service, which tracked the alleged Norwegian al-Qaida cell, "is not so interested in actually making arrests," said Brynjar Lia, a terrorism researcher at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment.
"Their preferred modus operandi is to prevent and disrupt -- and maybe deport people. That's much easier to do."
In Sweden, security police prefer to work "pre-emptively," talking to local religious leaders and individuals they believe might be inching toward joining terrorist organizations, according to Mattias Lindholm, a spokesman for Swedish security police SAPO.
Sumber-http://www.mail.com/intl/Article.aspx/world/europe/APNews/Europe/20100716/U_EU-Scandinavia-Terror?pageid=1
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