Sending Fighters to Iraq not Terror: Italian Judge

Judge Clementina Forleo said Monday, January24 , in documents seen by Reuters that there was no concrete evidence the four Tunisians and one Moroccan were involved in anything beyond what might be considered as “guerrilla” activities.

“Historically, the activity of the cells in question coincided with the United States’ attack on Iraq,” Reuters quoted a statement explaining Forleo's judgment.

“Numerous intercepted conversations refer to that event, and to the need to stem as much as possible its foreseeable negative impact by helping the ‘brothers’ in the conflict zone, either economically or by sending combatants to strengthen their armed groups.

“It has not been proven that these paramilitary structures provided for concrete programs with targets exceeding guerrilla activity,” the missive added.

The five Arab citizens were arrested last year under a law introduced after the September 11 attacks on charges of sending fighters to war-torn Iraq and planning attacks in Europe.

But the judge said there was no evidence of planning attacks in Europe and that sending fighters or funds to Iraq did not amount to terrorism.

Italy has a 3 ,000-strong contingent including ground troops, pilots along with three naval ships and 40 Red Cross volunteers in occupied Iraq.

Poor Evidence

The Italian judge said much of the submitted evidence against the five men were of very poor quality and relied on intelligence reports rather than hard evidence.

Forleo sentenced Bouyahia Maher and Ali Ben Sassi Toumi to three years and Mohammed Daki to 22 months in jail for trading forged documents, a sentence far less than the prison terms of up to 10 years prosecutors had requested.

Dirissi Noureddine and Kamel Hamraoui were referred by the Italian judge to another court because of a question of regional jurisdiction.

Forleo's ruling drew a strong reaction from the Italian government with Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini saying the judgment was a “shameless distortion of a reality that is under the eyes of the entire world.”

“To say in the ruling that 'in the conflict in question all armed actors have used instruments with an extremely high offensive potential' means you are placing the victims and the butchers on the same level,” Fini said in a statement.

Forleo's decision also prompted outrage from the Italian mass media and newspapers.

The La Stampa newspaper ran a blistering editorial with an English-language headline “Clementina Go Home,” blasting the judge for being unpatriotic.

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.

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.

http://islamonline.org/English/News/2005-01/26/article05.shtml