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Brandis seeks to expand Australia terror powers

September 15, 2016

Australia's attorney general is seeking new powers to indefinitely detain "high-risk terrorist offenders." George Brandis also wants police to have the power to search and surveil kids as young as 14.

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Australia
Image: Reuters

On Thursday, embattled Australian Attorney General George Brandis announced his intent to monitor youths as young as 14 for links to terror groups and allow officials to indefinitely detain people who have been convicted of terrorism. Australian officials say they fear lone wolf attacks.

"Children as young as 14 have been involved in terrorism-related activities," Brandis said in a statement.

In 2015, a 15-year-old boy was killed by officers after opening fire at a police station, leaving one man dead. This year, an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old were arrested preemptively after authorities suspected that they might intend to commit attacks.

With the relative youthfulness of some suspects in mind, Brandis seeks to lower the age of detention from 16 to 14, allow for increased surveillance of teenagers and their contacts, and prevent them from leaving the country without authorization. Australia's detention system is currently under inquiry after it emerged that a number of minors were abused in detention.

'An unacceptable risk'

Brandis also seeks to allow for the indefinite detention of people who have served prison sentences for terror. "A critical part of our role is managing terrorist offenders serving custodial sentences who continue to pose an unacceptable risk to the community after they are released from prison," Brandis said in Thursday's statement to announce the measures.

In 2014, a gunman killed one of 17 hostages in a cafe in Sydney, and the ensuing police raid left him and another hostage dead; the incident's links to terrorism are unclear. Last week in Sydney, a man stabbed another man in an incident said to have been inspired by the "Islamic State" group. Neither the gunman nor the slasher was a teenager, and they had not previously been accused of connections to terrorists.

Since 2014, Brandis said, authorities have arrested 48 people in 19 raids on suspected terror groups. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said about 100 Australians had left for Syria to fight alongside armed groups that oppose the autocratic regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The proposals come as Brandis is under fire from opposition lawmakers in the legislature who have launched a freedom of information campaign to look at the attorney general's meetings this summer. In a separate case in December, Australia's administrative appeals tribunal had ruled that Brandis must make his official schedule public, though the attorney general has been loath to do so.

mkg/kms (Reuters, EFE)