Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1150145
OVER THE RECENT FEW YEARS, SOMETIMES PERHAPS IMPERCEPTIBLY TO A WIDER AUDIENCE, THE POLISH ANTI- TERRORISM SYSTEM HAS EVOLVED TO A SIGNIFICANT DEGREE. WHAT AN AVERAGE JOE (OR ACTUALLY JAN) MIGHT HAVE NOTICED IS THE OBLIGATION TO REGISTER PREPAID CARDS. THE "TACTICAL AFICIONADOS", IN TURN, MIGHT HAVE TAKEN NOTICE OF POLICE SPECIAL FORCES CHANGING THEIR NAMES. On 5th April 2019, "Anti-terrorist", the term used to denote those units, was re- placed with another "counter-terrorist". There are no more Anti-Terrorist Police Subunits at provincial headquarters (SPAP, equivalent of US SWAT) nor there is the Polish Police Bureau of Anti-Terrorist Operations at the Police General (BOA, equivalent of FBI HRT). Their names have been changed to Independent Counter- Terrorist Police Unit (SPKP) and the Central Counter-Terrorist Police Unit of the Bureau of Anti-Terrorist Operations (CPKP BOA). But this doesn't mean yet another round of changing names, plates, and stamps for these units, boasting a rich history of transformation. Establishing a separate counter-terrorist service – meaning an operations section – in the Police is an outcome of an act on anti-terrorist ac- tivities, commonly referred to as the an- ti-terrorism law, coming into force two years ago. It's hard not to provide a longer argument on the current regulations in this context. The said act defines the principles of pur- suing anti-terrorist activities of a more comprehensive and more general nature (including prevention) and counter-terror- ist activities, aimed against perpetrators (and their collaborators) when a threat has taken the form of an actual terrorism crime or when there has been an attempt to commit such a crime in a given place and at a given time, with the said activities undertaken to eliminate any direct threat to human life, health or freedom, using special measures and tactical solutions. This way, in fact, it has been stipulated that such activities may be carried out only by specialized subunits. It's difficult not to go into the details of the complex legal definition of a terror- ism-related crime (and a terrorism-related event resulting from such a crime being committed). The Polish law does not name acts of terrorism as a separate type of crime. According to the Polish Criminal Code, which the anti-terrorism regulations refer to, a terrorism-related crime may be any crime that is subject to punishment by imprisonment of a maximum of at least five years and has been committed pur- posefully with one of the following three aims in mind: 1) to seriously terrorize many persons, 2) to compel a public authority of the Republic of Poland or of another state or a body of an international organization to perform or to abstain from performing certain acts, 3) to cause serious destabilization in the political system or economy of the Republic of Poland, another state or an internation- al organization. A threat to commit such an act may also be an instance of such a crime. And so not every event that may be com- monly considered a terrorist attack, say, an abduction or a homicide involving the use of explosives, will be automatically re- garded as a terrorism-related event. There has to be at least a suspicion that the perpetrator of a given crime acted with one of the three abovementioned objec- tives in mind and that the crime fits within the stipulated framework – otherwise the provisions of the anti-terrorism law may not be applied. It's hard to expect, though, that it will always be easy to interpret all sudden events correctly, especially those highly dynamic, such as stabbings in a shopping mall or other acts of violence happening in public environments. Anti-terrorism regulations will find no application either if an act of violence or a crime meet the criteria of criminality, like in the case of a typical kidnapping for ransom. Another important thing is that the act has also divided the responsibilities among indi- vidual services and state authorities. The main unit in charge of preventing terror- ist attacks – also by means of operation- al-surveillance activities – is the Internal Security Agency (ABW). State institutions ANALISE