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[martinuzz]

In the Netherlands terror suspect Jaouad A is sentenced to 4 years in prison for preparing a terrorist attack.

In his home the following things where found: a Kalashnikov with armour piercing rounds. 288 cobra pieces of firework. A manual to turn said firework into a pipe bomb. A big painting of an IS flag and 289 IS propaganda video files. He was also recorded discussing potential targets for terror attacks with 2 unknown men.

The judge said that with the arrest of Jaouad A a terror attack with a considerable amount of potential casualties has been prevented

-----

Come on, you plan to blow up and shoot down countless of people and you get FOUR years in prison?

I find this seriously disgusting, someone like that should be locked up for life.

Prosecutor had demanded 8 years.

Let's see. Illegal firearm posession.. Maximum sentence 5 years.
Illegal possesion of fireworks.. Maximum sentence is probably just a fine, maybe a year jailtime for illegal sale (the suspect claimed he just owned those to sell them), can't be proven they were for use in attack.
Possession of IS videos - Probably no sentence possible, unless proof can be found it was for active distribution
Possession of IS flag - not illegal
Planning of terrorist attack - little to no hard evidence, except recorded conversations which the subject claimed to be ripped out of context.

So technically, the prosecutor's demand of 8 years was already on the high side, since really all that could be proven doesn't add up to more than 6 years maximum sentencing.

So yeah, we might feel that someone like that needs to be locked away for life, but that's not how law works.

That doesn't mean that if this guy is released after serving 2/3ds of his time that our security service won't be watching his every move.

[Antioch]

In the Netherlands terror suspect Jaouad A is sentenced to 4 years in prison for preparing a terrorist attack.

In his home the following things where found: a Kalashnikov with armour piercing rounds. 288 cobra pieces of firework. A manual to turn said firework into a pipe bomb. A big painting of an IS flag and 289 IS propaganda video files. He was also recorded discussing potential targets for terror attacks with 2 unknown men.

The judge said that with the arrest of Jaouad A a terror attack with a considerable amount of potential casualties has been prevented

-----

Come on, you plan to blow up and shoot down countless of people and you get FOUR years in prison?

I find this seriously disgusting, someone like that should be locked up for life.

Prosecutor had demanded 8 years.

Let's see. Illegal firearm posession.. Maximum sentence 5 years.
Illegal possesion of fireworks.. Maximum sentence is probably just a fine, maybe a year jailtime for illegal sale (the suspect claimed he just owned those to sell them), can't be proven they were for use in attack.
Possession of IS videos - Probably no sentence possible, unless proof can be found it was for active distribution
Possession of IS flag - not illegal
Planning of terrorist attack - little to no hard evidence, except recorded conversations which the subject claimed to be ripped out of context.

So technically, the prosecutor's demand of 8 years was already on the high side, since really all that could be proven doesn't add up to more than 6 years maximum sentencing.

So yeah, we might feel that someone like that needs to be locked away for life, but that's not how law works.

That doesn't mean that if this guy is released after serving 2/3ds of his time that our security service won't be watching his every move.

The judge said a terrorist attack was prevented with his arrest. How can the judge say a terrorist attack has been prevented if he finds the evidence for that fact insufficient?

The court literally said an attack with a considerable amount of casualties was prevented:

De rechtbank acht bewezen dat A. een terroristisch misdrijf aan het voorbereiden was. ,,Hij was van plan een aanslag te plegen. Daarbij zou een aanzienlijk aantal slachtoffers te betreuren zijn geweest", stelt de rechtbank.

"Op grond van die combinatie van feiten concludeert de rechtbank dat de verdachte van plan was om een aanslag te plegen," staat in het vonnis. "Daarbij zou een aanzienlijk aantal slachtoffers te betreuren zijn geweest."

Anyway an appeal has already been requested by the justice department.

[Loud Whispers]

Don't worry dudes he'll be totes chillax in 2021

[Silverthrone]

You will not believe the tantrum that I am throwing.

The laws need urgent change, if this is all that can be expected from them in the current state. It is not reasonable for such treason to give such a light sentence. It is not even about justice, but about the basic safety of the realm. My word...

I do hope that a significant improval to the terrorist laws are on their way, in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the Union. Otherwise, it is effectively a statement that this business of being murdered at random by enemies within is something that we will, and should, all have to live with, and I cannot imagine that it is what anyone wants.

Don't worry dudes he'll be totes chillax in 2021

And such a display of mercy will no doubt convince all of his ideological fellows to surrender their arms and play nice and lovely with everyone. Surely?

[Egan_BW]

Otherwise, it is effectively a statement that this business of being murdered at random by enemies within is something that we will, and should, all have to live with, and I cannot imagine that it is what anyone wants.

People seem to do just fine with the much greater chance of being randomly killed by a car crash. :^)

[scriver]

Otherwise, it is effectively a statement that this business of being murdered at random by enemies within is something that we will, and should, all have to live with, and I cannot imagine that it is what anyone wants.

People seem to do just fine with the much greater chance of being randomly killed by a car crash. :^)

Yeah, there are absolutely no attempts made to prevent lethal car crashes in any way.

And if "does it kill more people than car crashes" is your standard for what upsets you then you must not be very upset by murders in general.

[da_nang]

Otherwise, it is effectively a statement that this business of being murdered at random by enemies within is something that we will, and should, all have to live with, and I cannot imagine that it is what anyone wants.

People seem to do just fine with the much greater chance of being randomly killed by a car crash. :^)

Well, one, (Islamic) terrorism has a novelty bias.

Two, there's a locality bias. Terrorists want to maximize the impact by killing as many as possible. That means targeting major population centers e.g. the capital. If you live out in the country all your life, then yeah, you'll probably be unaffected. But if you, like many others, live or frequent e.g. the capital, you'll run a much higher risk.

A lousy comparison: Let's say it's known that there's exactly one terrorist in France and that an attack is coming. Let's say you're affected by the terrorist attack if you're within 1 km of the terrorist. If the attack was truly random, he could attack anywhere in France. So that would be a uniform ~1 in 200,000 chance for you to be affected.

If, however, it is also known the terrorist is targeting Paris, which is likely, then it's now a 1 in 400 chance if you're in Paris, or zero chance if you're not in Paris. But how often are you not in Paris?

[Reelya]

You don't have to go quite so far to explain it, though you're not necessarily wrong.

People are just bad at statistics. Terrorism is the same as e.g. plane accidents in this regard. It's a common pattern of cognitive bias and not necessarily limited to terrorism related things. Things that happen to a lot of people at the same time just seem to have more impact than things that happen to one person at a time. That's because human intuition was designed around hunter-gatherer societies, which were bands of no more than 80-100 people. We're not geared to make snap judgements about much larger numbers than that. So if something kills 30 people all at once then it feels like it's a more immediate threat than if something else kills 60 people, but one at a time. Because the one-at-a-time threat feels like it's easier to avoid.

EDIT: I'll just mention the Monty Hall problem here. People* including maths professors were stumped by that when the "paradox" was first explained. And that's about as simplistic as you could possibly make a probabililty / statistical thought experiment. If people in general, even experts in probability, can't intuit such a simple and straightfoward math word problem, then how do we expect them to be able to rationally compute probabilities for large and complex systems?

*In fact, idiots are still arguing against the mathematically-correct and provable answer to the monty hall problem. People just cannot understand variable probability. e.g. if there are two options and you can pick one, then the odds must be 50/50 that you pick right, right? Apply this deranged Monty Hall thinking to car accidents vs plane accidents or car accidents vs terrorism.

[Silverthrone]

Otherwise, it is effectively a statement that this business of being murdered at random by enemies within is something that we will, and should, all have to live with, and I cannot imagine that it is what anyone wants.

People seem to do just fine with the much greater chance of being randomly killed by a car crash. :^)

It is not a matter of chance. While they might seem the same when compared only by the end result (being killed), being killed by a motorcar by accident is a very different thing to being deliberately run over by a murderer, and that murder is also changed by the fact that it is being committed by a foreign individual who have decided that you do not get to live in peace in your own country.

Further, the fact that an individual is more likely to die in a traffic accident is not a compelling arguement to avoid making legislation that makes it more difficult to commit mass murder. There is more to the matter than merely statistics on the likelyhood of being killed. With the right application of statistics, it is possible to turn the most wretched crimes and disasters into readily dismissable little trifles, I am sure...

In brief, the actual individual risk is very low indeed, but that does not mean that there is no reason to do anything.

[hector13]

I’m not sure how writing things on a piece of paper is going to stop someone who really wants to kill folks in the name of an idea they think’ll get them laid in the afterlife will make it less likely to happen.

Perhaps they’re looking to get something out of following him when he gets out, or they’re worried about him radicalsing other prisoners, or they’re trying to send a message to the terrorists that they really aren’t worth the effort of throwing a guy in a small room forever.

Terrorism isn’t just about killing folks, you gotta work in that propaganda too. They kill the guy, he’s a martyr. They throw him in the aforementioned small room, they’re tyrants. Any halfway decent PR guy can spin something to look the way they want it to.

Still... four years is kinda fucked up. If you have several hundred explosives, I think it’s pretty obvious you intend to blow shit up.

[ChairmanPoo]

The Spanish foreign minister anounced that if the nationalists win again the goverment will offer a constitutional reform that makes things closer to the autonomy statute of 2010 that they brought down


About f*ing time you moron.  Thats what you should have done 5 years ago. Now? Dousing this isn't going to come that cheap. They're going to demand a Basque-style economic concert at the very least

[smjjames]

The question now is whether the Catalans will take Madrid at their word. At least Madrid is acknowledging the fact that they might not get the results they'd prefer and are giving themselves an off ramp away from a constitutional crisis, or the current one escalating.

Just had a thought, remember the Italian politics thing I posted a while back? I wonder if they might try to push harder now that pushing an independence referendum made Madrid possibly concede to negotiations. Of course though, the political ecosystem of Italy is completely different and it sounded like usual Italian politics to me.

[Dorsidwarf]

Not sure if it got mentioned but I'm sure I saw a Beeb news article mentioning that Spain demanded an international arrest warrant for the catalan ministers who fled to brussels

[smjjames]

Not much going on in Europe?

UK Foriegn Minister Boris Johnson (that British guy with the Trump-like hair) got photographed with the 'London Professor' in the Russia probe. Nothing actually scandalous at this point, just sort of a 'so, you got photographed with this guy' and concerns about Russian influence in the British government.

Catalan crisis stuff still happening http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41958204

I wonder whether the Madrid government really will accept the results of the election in December if the results come out in a way that they'd rather not. Deciding that they don't like the results and attempting to reroll might provoke another constitutional crisis of its own.

Also, developments in Poland that should worry everybody https://www.politico.eu/article/white-nationalists-call-for-ethnic-purity-at-polish-independence-day-march/ Also, among the chants was "Europe is white or uninhabited", advocating ethnic self-genocide of their own ethnic identity, really?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Polish Nazis, the proof that irony will never die.