Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Kazakhstan has prevented several terror acts in 2013, Deputy Prosecutor General Andrey Kravchenko said on June 4.

He made the remarks during a plenary meeting of the Kazakh parliament where he presented a draft law 'On making amendments and additions to some legislative acts of Kazakhstan on the issues of combating extremism and terrorism'.

"As an active UN member, Kazakhstan cooperates with other countries under the global counter-terrorism strategy. The country has begun to implement a five-year program on countering religious extremism and terrorism since 2013. Under this program, Kazakhstan's special law enforcement agencies prevented several terrorism attempts in 2013 alone," Kravchenko said.

He also noted, over 10 terrorist attacks have been made in Kazakhstan in recent years and these attacks left 17 employees of the law enforcement agencies dead and four civilians injured.

Some 57 criminal attacks have been registered in January-April 2014. These attacks were initiated by religious hatred and financed by criminal groups which are after fuelling extremism and terrorism in the country.

Kravchenko added since early 2014 around 20 people have been convicted on the above-mentioned cases.

"Over a hundred cases of participation of our citizens in terrorist activities abroad have been recorded in recent years. Extremist and terrorist groups have shifted their radical activities to Kazakhstan," the deputy prosecutor general said.

He went on to add that since 2009, the government has stopped import of over 500 information packages which contained extremist material.

The draft law envisages a ban on the entrance into Kazakhstan of persons whom national security agencies have information about their involvement in extremism or terrorist activity.

It has also offered to include the extreme organizations into the list of terrorist groups.

The amendment aims to introduce new legal form of action with the purpose of prevention and neutralization of the actions creating conditions for committing crimes, including terrorist and extremist crimes.

The national security authorities may issue warning for individuals and legal persons not to create a condition for crime. Investigation into such cases is up to the national security organizations.