HIBAPRESS
The Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, the Head of the Public Prosecution, Hicham Blawi, confirmed on Wednesday in Rabat that the distinguished partnership between the heads of public prosecutions specializing in combating terrorism in Morocco, France, Spain, and Belgium, within the framework of the quadrilateral agreement, effectively contributes to addressing the threat of terrorism and confronting its challenges, and constitutes an ideal embodiment of the foundations established by the global counter-terrorism strategy.
Blawi explained during the opening session of the meeting of the heads of public prosecutions, parties to the quadrilateral agreement to combat terrorism, which is being held over two days, that these efforts should continue given the increasing severity of terrorist crimes committed on a large scale around the world, which renew their methods and diversify their means, pointing to the importance of concerted efforts in this field. Blawi considered that developing international cooperation to counter terrorism is a necessity, noting that the terrorist threat is not limited to one country without another, it is a circular link that lurks for all peoples and threatens all countries. He also stressed that no country, regardless of its capabilities, can alone face this phenomenon that affects the security and safety of the international community, noting that confronting this phenomenon requires the necessity of activating international judicial cooperation mechanisms in accordance with the global counter-terrorism strategy to facilitate the exchange of available information at the required speed in order to cut off the path for extremist terrorist groups, so that they do not take the territory of any country as a safe haven from pursuit and follow-up. Blawi highlighted in this regard that judicial cooperation in the field of combating terrorism between the four countries is witnessing remarkable development, especially through the employment of liaison judges to facilitate communication between the specialized public prosecutions in the concerned countries, and especially since the establishment of the Quadripartite Committee, highlighting that this enabled the four countries to have a suitable platform for exchanging information on legislation and judicial jurisprudence, as well as for studying joint issues and tracking terrorist threats. He added that the matter also concerns coordinating to confront terrorist threats with the judicial mechanisms available in the legislation, pointing out that direct communication between the members of the four concerned public prosecutions helps in the proper application of judicial cooperation agreements, and the speed of completing and implementing cooperation requests related to terrorism cases. He pointed out that despite the success and effectiveness demonstrated by the various legal, security, and institutional measures that have been taken to address the phenomenon of terrorism, the qualitative development of the phenomenon puts countries and security and judicial institutions, in particular, in front of different-dimensional challenges, considering that “the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters, due to its ideological and organizational characteristics, remains at the present time the most prominent challenge for various security agencies and judicial institutions.” He shed light on the development of platforms and communication networks and their exploitation in promoting and criminal propaganda and incitement, highlighting that social media sites on the global Internet have become an ideal space through which terrorist groups practice their activities, due to the possibility of communicating in a secret way, and their openness to a wide audience distributed around the world. He concluded that the search for available ways to combat terrorism in all its forms and developments constitutes an international consensus, which is crystallized in the form of international and regional agreements, and resolutions and recommendations issued by the United Nations, which have produced an integrated legal and organizational arsenal that takes into account the security and human rights aspects, noting that today's meeting is one of the successful international mechanisms in this field where the exchange of information on legislative initiatives in the field of combating terrorism and the rules of jurisprudence is of great importance. This meeting falls within the framework of strengthening the mechanisms of judicial and security cooperation in the field of combating terrorism, and aims to assess the outcome of judicial cooperation between the member states, and to explore the prospects for developing this cooperation to face the increasing challenges related to terrorist crime, in addition to exchanging experiences and best practices in the field of preventing and combating terrorism. The program of this meeting, whose opening session was marked by the presence of a number of personalities, especially, the Wali of the Rabat–Salé–Kénitra region, Mustapha Moufid, and the director of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations, Cherkaoui Haboub, in addition to the public prosecutors in France, Belgium and Spain, includes holding sessions on technical presentations and in-depth discussions on tracking terrorism cases presented before the judiciary and ways to expedite judicial mandates, as well as strengthening information exchange mechanisms, in addition to studying ways to develop reintegration programs and prevent extremism.
