‘Terrorism’ Depends on Target 

Arab News

MILAN, 22 April 2005 — Militants who attack military or state targets, even with suicide bombers, cannot be considered terrorists in times of war or occupation, an Italian judge said in a ruling released yesterday.

Judge Clementina Forleo, who outraged Italian authorities earlier this year by dropping charges against suspected Islamic militants accused of helping to recruit suicide bombers for Iraq — saying the alleged crimes amounted to foreign guerrilla activity, which is not illegal in Italy.

The reasoning behind her ruling was released only yesterday.

“The differentiating factor ... does not appear to be the instrument used (to attack), but the target in one’s sights,” she said, adding that “terrorists” attack indiscriminately instead of distinguishing between civilian and military targets.

Foreign guerrilla activity, which is not a crime in Italian courts, instead targets “a foreign occupying army or a state structure held by the combatants as illegitimate.”

She also warned that defining “violent acts” by irregular forces as terrorism “compromised people’s right to self-determination and independence”.

Her January ruling was seen as a legal defeat for the Italian government which has more than 3,000 troops in Iraq and has tried to step up anti-terrorism policing at home.