Ihsan Garnaoui, a 34-year-old Tunisian, was acquitted in Berlin Wednesday of trying to form a terrorist group, even though judges considered it proven that he had planned to carry out at least one bomb attack in Germany at the start of the Iraq war in March 2003.
The same day, Dutch teen-ager Samir Azzouz was cleared of planning attacks on Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, a nuclear reactor and government offices.
He had been found in possession of machinegun cartridges, mock explosive devices, electrical circuitry, maps and sketches of prominent buildings and chemicals prosecutors said could be bomb ingredients.
Legal experts and security analysts said such cases raise a difficult question: in the absence of an actual attack, how close must a suspect be to detonating a bomb before prosecutors can demonstrate guilt?
The sad thing is, Europeans probably couldn't convict Hitler nowadays, such is the state of their narrowly focused legalistic approach to fighting terror.
But hey, once that teenager blows the reactor, I'm sure they'll have enough evidence to nail him. That has to count for a lot.
These thugs are not criminals--they are enemies. The Europeans need their own Gitmo. Is Elba still available? Or St. Helena?
