(ANSA) Rome, January, 21 - The Italian police force
Wednesday ordered frontier controls be bolstered amid the scare
caused by January's Islamist terrorist attacks in France.
"The growing security demands deriving from the current
international scenario make it necessary to strengthen and
optimize (border controls)," read a circular letter issued by
the police's central migration directorate.
The letter tells officers working at border to make
"systematic use" of databases to help combat international
terrorism.
The circular was greeted sceptically, however, by the
secretary of the Police officers' union SAP, Gianni Tonelli, who
said "the Interior Ministry wants to reinforce frontier
controls, both European and extra Schengen, because of the
terrorism emergency, but the new circular...is the latest
leg-pull because the government is getting ready to close
important maritime and air frontier offices".
Frontier control offices are set to close in Trieste,
Pescara, Gorizia and Gioia Tauro, Tonelli said.
Italy also is considering passing a decree law to make it
illegal for Italians to fight for Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria
and Iraq, Italian Undersecretary for Home Affairs Domenico
Manzione said.
Premier Matteo Renzi's cabinet could pass the decree on
foreign fighters as soon as Thursday, Manzione told reporters on
the fringes of the inauguration of a museum on the Shoah in
Florence.
The text of the law "would foresee the possibility of
introducing into our order sanctions against people who are
enrolled to go and fight abroad," he said.
"We all have a problem in Europe of the so-called returning
fighters from war zones," he added. "We have it less than other
European countries but since the phenomenon is there the
government seriously is considering approving a decree law for
Thursday, or otherwise a delegate law, that would deal with this
subject".
Manzione also said it had been "prudent" of authorities to
expel from Italy Furkan Semih Dundar, a Turkish student at the
elite Scuola Normale in Pisa, after the Turk was quoted as
saying in emails that he wanted to blow up an embassy.
In Brussels, EU anti-terrorism czar Gilles De Kerchove was
quoted saying the European Union needs more political will to
defeat terrorism, using better the mechanisms already at its
disposal.
"We must mobilise political will to amplify and accelerate
the realisation of measures already decided in the (European)
Council of June 2013 and make better use of the EU mechanisms,
including the revised Strategy to fight radicalisation and
recruitment of terrorism," he was quoted saying.
De Kerchove made his remarks in a confidential document
presented Tuesday to delegates from the 28 member states at the
EU's Operational Committee for Internal Security (COSI) that was
held ahead of an informal EU interior ministers' meeting being
held in Riga, the Latvian capital.
Meanwhile the Italian intelligence coordinating body
Copasir called for more protection for secret service agents
working under cover against terror suspects and said the
government should make a "significant increase" in the resources
available to the intelligence services so that new staff can be
hired in delicate operations and new equipment can be purchased
to counter cyber terrorism, interior ministry sources said.
In another development a prosecutor in Calabria, Nicola
Gratteri, said he is concerned about the vast supply of arms to
western Europe from the former Yugoslavia "which has become a
big weapons supermarket, where a Klashnikov costs 750 euros … it
is easy to go there and buy arms, not only for the mafias, but
also for the terrorist organisations."
"But Europe does nothing about this, not having a real
common security policy".
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