Saturday, December 08, 2001

TRAC Reports: Criminal Enforcement Against Terrorists
Many Investigations But Few Referred for Prosecution

The FBI now reports conducting more than 10,000 terrorism investigations a year. (See table.) By contrast, just released Justice Department data show that in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001 that all the criminal investigative agencies of the government asked federal prosecutors to bring criminal charges against 463 individuals who the assistant U.S. Attorneys had identified as being involved in either international or domestic terrorism.

Referrals for Prosecution Up Sharply Even Before September 11

The Justice Department’s internal administrative data -- unlike the information reported by the FBI -- distinguish between international and domestic terrorism. For both groups investigative requests for prosecution increased substantially in FY 2001 but still represented only a tiny fraction of all federal criminal matters:

But Federal Prosectors Usually Decline To Bring Charges

The data also show that federal prosecutors declined to bring charges against more than two out of three of the criminal suspects who they themselves had classified as being involved in domestic or international terrorism. (See graph.) Most of the suspects were referred to the prosecutors by the FBI.

The prosecutors cited many reasons for rejecting the recommendations of the investigators during the five-year period ending on September 30, among them Justice Department policy, the death of the defendant, and jurisdictional or venue problems. But the prosecutors said they had declined more than one third of the matters presented to them because the referrals lacked evidence of criminal intent, were of minimal federal interest, were backed up by weak or insufficient admissible evidence, or did not involve a federal offense. (See international and domestic tables for reasons.)
TRAC http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/terrorism/report011203.html

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