EU
taskforce highlights security failings that facilitated terror
attacks
Leaked
report suggests need to enhance Schengen area security, raising
possibility of internal border police checks
Daniel
Boffey in Brussels
Tuesday
14 March 2017 06.00 GMT
A leaked EU report
examining the terror attacks in Berlin, Paris and Brussels warns of
gaping holes in the ability of the security services to monitor
movements in and out of Europe.
The document,
obtained by the Guardian, notes that all those who committed or
sought to commit large-scale terror attacks in recent years crossed
the EU’s external border “at some point prior to committing their
attacks”. It warns that even EU citizens subject to a European
arrest warrant were able to enter the continent freely or to leave
“without being detected due to the non-systematic check of EU
citizens”.
Under the current
system, it is also impossible for cross-national databases to be
searched using biometric data, such as fingerprints.
The authors of the
document, drawn up by the European commission’s security union
taskforce, write that the Schengen Border Code “did not allow for
the systematic consultation” of national and international
databases, leaving the security services unable to carry out basic
checks that could have avoided the ensuing bloodshed.
“Another shared
aspect of many of the recent attacks is movement within the EU, be it
by the perpetrators or their supporters in preparation for an attack
or subsequent escape; or to traffic the means that support
terrorists, such as illegal firearms and explosives”, they write.
“This raises the question of whether more can be done to enhance
security within the Schengen area. This could include action to
enhance police checks in internal border regions and along main
transport routes.”
Abdelhamid Abaaoud,
who is suspected of being the overall field commander behind the
Paris attacks in 2015, was the subject of both a European and an
international arrest warrant, yet travelled from Belgium to Syria via
Egypt in March 2013 before returning to Europe. He then left for
Syria again, taking a flight from Cologne to Istanbul.
Anis Amri, who
murdered 12 people last December by driving a truck into a Christmas
market in Berlin, was a failed asylum seeker in Italy, who later
entered Germany from Switzerland despite being a suspected terrorist.
He used various aliases to avoid detection.
The taskforce
further warns of failings in the sharing of information between
member states about individuals who are believed to be a risk. “Many
of the individuals involved in recent terrorist attacks in the EU had
[mostly petty] criminal records,” the taskforce writes.
“A further common
element between recent attacks is the appearance of many of the
suspects on surveillance lists, especially national watch lists. In a
number of cases, perpetrators were subject to SIS [Schengen
informaton system] alerts, which are an important tool in the
detection of suspected terrorists.
“The number of
alerts has significantly increased in the last two years, but there
remain differences between the way in which member states use the
system, including a lack of consistency in the use of SIS alerts.
Should an obligation for information sharing be introduced for all
existing EU security databases? Should those databases be searchable
by biometric as well as alphanumeric data?”
According to the
taskforce, the European commission is now assessing the feasibility
of establishing a European police record information system, so that
national police forces’ information is collated centrally. It is
the commission’s intention to pilot a project under which security
services can ask the new EU system to confirm whether someone has a
criminal record in any of the member states.
The European
parliament will debate the EU’s ability to secure its citizens on
Wednesday to mark the coming anniversary of the attacks in Brussels
that killed 32 people, along with the three suicide bombers.
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