“A draft law on terrorism in Africa is going to be accepted during a meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday of AU experts of the African Centre for Studies and Research on Terrorism (ACSRT)” Lamamra said in Algiers.
He was speaking on the sidelines of an international conference marking the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, which began on Monday.
The ACSRT, set up in Algiers in October 2004, is an AU agency responsible for “strengthening the capability of African countries in the domain of the prevention of terrorism”, according to its statutes.
“This law will enable member nations of the AU to pursue or extradite (to their country of origin) terrorists active on their territory,” Lamamra said, adding that the draft text sought to harmonise different legislations.
Member states of the AU will be asked to approve “an African arrest warrant and the drawing up of a list of known terrorist and terrorist entities, like those of the UN”, he added.
The text will also include measures to ban and make criminal the paying of ransoms to terrorist groups.
The Sahel region of northwest Africa has in recent years seen a resurgence of activity by drug traffickers and bandits, but also groups affiliated to al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), including hostage takings.
The UN Security Council on December 17 2009, passed a resolution “criminalising the payment of ransoms”, in particular to “terrorist entities”, as the African Union did on July 3 2009.
More than 200 foreign guests are attending the Algiers conference, including the former presidents of Nigeria and South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki, the president of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, and Taye-Brook Zerihoun, a special envoy of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
Source: news24