Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask leave of the House to make a statement on behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties concerning the committee's report No. 177 and also to present a document relating to extraterritorial jurisdiction.

Leave granted.

Today I rise to make a statement concerning the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report No. 177, which was originally tabled on 15 February this year. The report considered the proposed extradition and mutual legal assistance treaties with Jordan. As I advised the House in February, the committee has a history of supporting extradition and mutual legal assistance treaties and, after careful consideration, recommended the two treaties be ratified. The committee has received additional information this week from the Attorney-General's Department which changes the substance of one of the other recommendations made in the report, and it's important this statement be made to the House.

Back in February, the committee recommended that Australia and Jordan negotiate a less than treaty level agreement setting out how the extradition treaty will apply if Australia seeks the return of Australian foreign fighters transiting through Jordan from Iraq and Syria. The committee believed the less than treaty level agreement would prevent complications arising from the extraterritorial nature of foreign fighter offences. The additional information from the Attorney-General's Department clarifies this issue. After due consideration, the committee has resolved to table a document provided by the AGD, the Attorney-General's Department, regarding extraterritorial jurisdiction. The document will, of course, be published on the committee's website.

The document makes clear that what was initially informed to the committee—that there would be complications from the extraterritorial nature of foreign fighter offences—is not complicated at all. A significant body of work has been done by the Attorney-General, and the committee thanks him for his time and diligence. That document shows that in Jordan terrorism offences are contained in the Anti-Terrorism Law No. 55 of 2006. The legislation goes on to list, on a non-exclusive basis, a number of acts that are considered as terrorist acts. According to article 3 of the law, as amended in 2014, there are nine offences under Jordanian law that would make it possible to extradite for extraterritorial offences. If a foreign fighter were fighting in Iraq or Syria and transiting through Jordan, Jordan could indeed seek to bring them into custody, and Australia could seek to extradite them if the offence that occurred in Syria or Iraq were an offence in Jordan. I will list just the top four of the nine offences under article 3 of the Anti-Terrorism Law No. 55 of Jordan:

1. Directly or indirectly providing, collecting or raising funds for the purpose of committing a terrorist act, whether performed inside the Kingdom or against its citizens or interests abroad;

2. Committing acts that would subject the kingdom—

of Jordan—

to hostilities, harm its relations with a foreign state or subject Jordanians or their property to the dangers of retaliation.

3. Joining or attempting to join any armed groups or terrorist organizations, recruiting or attempting to recruit people to join such groups or organizations or training such persons for the said purpose, whether inside or outside the kingdom.

4. Establishing or joining an association, group or organization for the purpose or committing terrorist acts, whether inside the kingdom or against its citizens or interests abroad.

It is clear from an analysis of the Jordanian Anti-Terrorism Law No. 55, particularly article 3, that there are not complications with respect to the extraterritorial nature of foreign fighter offences.

Accordingly, the committee will table this advice from the Attorney-General's Department. The committee also seeks to withdraw the recommendations that Australia and Jordan negotiate a less-than-treaty-level agreement setting out how the extradition treaty will apply if Australia seeks the return of Australian foreign fighters transiting through Jordan from Iraq or Syria, on the basis that Jordanian law quite clearly allows it and therefore would allow an extradition to occur. I present the document.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—The member for Fadden, the chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, of which I'm deputy chair, has this morning tabled additional information about extraterritorial jurisdiction. This document, now public, entails the following: Jordan's antiterrorism law is subject to its own Penal Code No. 16 of 1960. Article 10 of the Penal Code No. 16 applies extraterritorial jurisdiction to all acts that are considered as felonies under Jordanian law, including acts under the antiterrorism law, where such acts are committed by a Jordanian citizen or foreigners residing in Jordan, even if they take place outside Jordan. So apparently, thanks to the Attorney-General's diligence in questioning his own department's advice, Australia would not have difficulty in extraditing foreign terrorists to Australia. Through the making of this clarification and the member for Fadden adding this erratum in parliament, we are making it clear that Australia and Jordan can address such difficult extraditions.

This is particularly relevant for me, as any fair-minded interpretation of article 3 of Jordan's own laws on antiterrorism would see the arrest of Ahlam al-Tamimi. The member for Fadden read article 3 out, I will just read it out again:

Joining or attempting to join any armed groups or terrorist organizations, recruiting or attempting to recruit people to join such groups or organizations or training such persons for the said purpose, whether inside or outside the kingdom—

That would see, in my view, the arrest of Ahlam al-Tamimi, a Jordanian national convicted—but released in a prisoner swap—of assisting a particularly obscene act of terrorism at a pizza shop in downtown Jerusalem on 9 August 2001, in which 15 civilians were murdered, including seven children and a pregnant woman, and 130 people wounded. Tamimi has publicly admitted that she planned this attack and that she drove the suicide bomber to the target.

One of the people killed, I regret to advise this parliament, was my constituent Malki Roth, daughter of my constituents Arnold and Frimet Roth. Under Jordan's own law we should see Tamimi surrendered in response to the US FBI most-wanted-terrorist warrant issued last year. Now, thanks to the Attorney-General's clarification and the member for Fadden's erratum in this parliament and clarification, there's a possibility that Australia will also deal with this individual that the FBI issued a warrant for last year.