The President of Niger, Brigadier General Abdourahamane Tiani, on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, signed an order creating a file on terrorists and their accomplices, the Niger News Agency (ANP) reported, citing a press release from the Presidency.
According to the decree, which was signed by Niger’s Head of State on Tuesday, all natural and legal persons involved in terrorist acts or other crimes affecting Niger’s strategic interests will be registered.
General Tiani explained that this is an administrative procedure designed to strengthen the mechanisms for combating terrorist acts or crimes affecting the strategic and/or fundamental interests of the nation.
The offences that may lead to registration include committing, planning, supporting or facilitating terrorist acts, belonging to a terrorist group, threatening the stability of the nation, carrying weapons against the State, providing information to a foreign power with a view to involving it in hostilities against the State, providing it with the means, facilitating the infiltration of foreign forces into Niger territory, undermining the loyalty of the armed forces or in any other way; supplying a foreign power or its agents, in any form or by any means, with information, an object, a document or a process that must be kept secret in the interests of national
defence; disseminating data or statements likely to disturb public order’, reads the Head of State’s order.
To this end, General Abdourahamane Tiani said that registration in the database would take place as soon as an investigation or trial has been opened, or following a judicial conviction at the request of the intelligence services.
This listing, according to the press statement, will automatically result in the freezing of financial assets, a ban on domestic and international travel and restrictions on commercial transactions for the individuals or entities concerned’.
In the event of prosecution, ‘for these offences, the person prosecuted may be provisionally deprived of Nigerien nationality by decree, and this deprivation shall become definitive in the event of a conviction to a prison sentence of five years or more,” the decree said.
A National Registration Committee has been set up to decide on applications for registration or de-registration and on administrative disputes relating to the registration or de-registration of persons, groups of persons or entities.
DS/sf/te/lb/GIK/APA