MILAN,
April 22, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Attacking
military or state targets, even with “suicide bombers”, cannot be
considered terrorism in times of war or occupation, an Italian judge
said in the legal foundations of an earlier ruling, seen likely to
deepen a controversy over the matter.
Judge
Clementina Forleo outraged Italian authorities earlier this year by
dropping charges against suspected militants accused of helping to
recruit so-called “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 only released Thursday, April 21.
Besides
a lack of evidence linking them to an international terrorism network,
alone enough to clear the defendants, Forleo ruled the alleged crimes
could not be considered “terrorist” under conventional
international doctrine.
“The
dividing line between guerrilla activity and terrorism is drawn almost
unanimously from international doctrine,” she wrote in the 69-page
document, according to Reuters.
“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, not a crime in an Italian court, instead targets
“a foreign occupying army or against a state structure held by the
combatants as illegitimate.”
She
also warned that defining “every violent act” by irregular forces
as terrorist risked “comprising people's right to self-determination
and independence”.
Her
January ruling was seen as a legal defeat for the Italian government
which has sent more than 3,000 troops to Iraq and has tried, in
coordination with the United States, to step up anti-terrorism
policing at home.
Italian
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had earlier said his country would
withdraw its forces from Iraq, but later retracted his statements
reportedly under pressures from Washington.
Disciplinary
Investigation
 |
|
A file photo of Israeli soldiers in occupied Palestinian areas.
|
Forleo’s
reasoning has drawn fury among Italian officials, especially as Rome
is a key ally of the United States which launched the offensive and
leads the occupation of Iraq.
Earlier
this year, Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli called Forleo’s
decision “stomach turning” and Communications Minister Maurizio
Gasparri said she was “extremely wrong”.
The
judge is suing them for defamation.
Justice
Minister Roberto Castelli opened a disciplinary investigation into
Forleo for possible negligence.
The
Dublin-based International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS) has
ruled that resisting occupation troops in Iraq was a
“duty”
on able Muslims
in and outside the country and that aiding the occupier was
impermissible.
On
the indiscriminate attacks that claim the lives of innocent civilians,
the IAMS asked resistance fighters not to target women, children and
the elderly even if they were of the occupiers’ nationalities.
Also,
a cohort of prominent Saudi scholars have further
defended
resistance against
the occupation forces in Iraq as a legitimate right, prohibiting
cooperation with the occupiers and collaboration against resistance
groups.
Forleo’s
ruling legally means that attacks by resistance fighters anywhere
against military targets in occupied areas are not acts of terrorism,
regardless of the means they use to do so. That sure applies to both
Israeli and US occupations of Palestine and Iraq respectively.
