Terrorism Trials Research Articles

Terror trials: Life and law in Delhi's courts By Mayur R. Suresh. New York: Fordham University Press, 2023. 272 pp.

Terror trials: Life and law in Delhi's courts By Mayur R. Suresh. New York: Fordham University Press, 2023. 272 pp.

The Courtroom as Four Landscapes: Reflections on Terrorism Trials Through Ethnographic Research

In the past decade, Western European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and France have seen a sharp increase in terrorism trials. Studying these trials can provide unique insights into which terrorist offences come before the court and what legal challenges arise from this relatively novel practice. To unpack the complexity of terrorism trials, we adopt an empirical approach to terrorism trials. Based on 3 years of extensive ethnography in Dutch courts, the paper makes two contributions to the socio-legal literature. Methodologically, our ethnography connects traditional empirical methods to artistic tools. As such, we further the current debates in socio-legal studies on courtroom ethnography. Empirically, we present critical insights on the interaction between pre-emptive speculative security measures and legal procedures in the prosecution of terrorist activities.

Transitional justice and terrorism: socio-legal reflections on the problem of trials, perpetrator responsibility and accountability

Scholars have only recently begun to link transitional justice frameworks to legal settlements after terror. In the wake of Anders Breivik’s 2011 attacks, Norway has witnessed a series of terror and mass violence events, each followed by extensive legal proceedings. These include the 2019 mosque attack, the 2021 Kongsberg killings, and the 2022 Islamist attack during Oslo Pride week. This article examines these trials as a societal, ongoing process. This research contributes to the field of transitional justice by examining how legal systems grapple with the aftermath of terror in the absence of clear-cut criminal narratives. Focus is given to how we can expand our understanding of the meaning of legal accountability in terror contexts. The central contribution of the article is to problematise the relationship between terror trials as vehicles for perpetrator responsibility, and justice and healing. Starting from the mental health narratives surrounding all the perpetrators, the article suggests that there is a tension between holding terrorists accountable and defining them as patients. To contribute to alternative ways of construing legal accountability, the article puts forward examples of how accountability for terror is being navigated and negotiated in bureaucratic, political, and international legal discourse and practice. The article is part of a special issue honouring the contributions of the late Professor Thomas Mathiesen.

Exploring the Landscape of Sentencing for Terrorist Offenders: A Scoping Review

The field of counter-terrorism studies has witnessed significant growth over the past two decades. Despite this growth, research on the sentencing of terrorist offenders remains relatively limited. This scoping review aims to comprehensively map this research area in terms of volume, nature, and characteristics, adopting a rigorous and transparent approach, resulting in the inclusion of 59 studies. After mapping these studies according to their general characteristics (specifically the historical and geographical distribution, and the adopted research methods), this review delves deeper into the specific characteristics of quantitative studies (including the timeframe of each dataset, the sample sizes, the coded variables and the statistical strategies used). A thematic analysis of the studies reveals key findings concerning legislation and its impact on terrorism trials, sentencing principles and guidelines, as well as specific factors influencing sentencing outcomes. Additionally, the review features recommendations for future research, as outlined in existing studies. The discussion section outlines the implications for policy and practice, presents recommendations for scholars, and reflects on the limitations of this review. In particular, a plea is made for more mixed methods-driven research within European countries, by establishing open-source databases based on official documentation.

Proscribing Time?: Proscription and Temporality in Terrorism Trials

Abstract This article explores the closely knit yet complex link between proscription and temporality through the examination of terrorism trials in Nigeria. Through the notion of proscribing time, this article demonstrates the ways in which proscription is enacted, imagined, and contested in light of important temporal effects. With a few exceptions, recent debates around proscription remain almost overwhelmingly focused on the banning of particular groups linked to terrorism, and on proscription power and its wider political and ethical ramifications. This “actor-oriented” focus (proscribed/proscriber), I argue, reinforces certain theoretical and ontological claims recognizable in the dominant analysis of terrorism. Moreover, such a perspective is predominantly organized around a forward-oriented logic of security preemption, which does not fully reveal the complexity and broader consequences of proscription. Thus, drawing upon relevant insights about temporality, especially as discussed in critical security studies, critical legal studies, and beyond, this article demonstrates how time is proscribed (rather than terrorist groups) to render visible the complexity and ramifications of proscription. The article, as such, contributes theoretically to ongoing debates about proscription and temporality in critical security studies more broadly. It also, empirically, makes a worthwhile contribution to a relatively small, though important, scholarship on terrorism trials in Nigeria.

Engaging with court research: The case of French terror trials

Transnational legal research often tends to overlook the local management of justice. It often moves too quickly from the local to the trans/global level, without taking the necessary time to investigate local practices. In addressing this research gap, my aim is to “re-localize“ studies within their geographical context and analyze the trans/national dynamics from within, using a bottom-up approach based on ethnography. This article presents a prolonged ethnography carried between 2017 and 2022 within French terrorism courts by a multidisciplinary team. The article provides an overview of the methodology, highlights the key finding, and offers a methodological framework for future empirical court studies, with the intention of supporting researchers in their future studies.

Book review: Mayur R. Suresh, Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi Courts

Mayur R. Suresh, Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi Courts. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2023, 272 pages, ₹1,135.

Commissioned Book Review: Mayur S Suresh, Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi’s Courts

Commissioned Book Review: Mayur S Suresh, <i>Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi’s Courts</i>

Book review: Mayur Suresh. 2023. Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi’s Courts

Book review: Mayur Suresh. 2023. Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi’s Courts

Grounds for Exemption from Criminal Liability? How Forensic Linguistics Can Contribute to Terrorism Trials

Drawing on Brown and Fraser’s (in: Giles, Scherer (eds) Social markers in speech, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 33–62, 1979) framework for the analysis of communicative situations and Fuentes Rodríguez’s (Lingüística pragmática y Análisis del discurso, Arco Libros, Madrid, 2000; in Estudios de Lingüística: Investigaciones lingüísticas en el siglo XXI, 2009. https://doi.org/10.14198/ELUA2009.Anexo3.04) model of pragmatic analysis, this paper examines three home-made recordings featuring some of the members of the terrorist cell responsible for the 2017 vehicle-ramming attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils weighted as evidence during the trial held between November 2020 and May 2021 in the Spanish National High Court. The aim of this qualitative analysis is to test whether the linguistic evidence available supports the allegation that the participation in these recordings by one of the accused, Mohamed Houli Chemlal, had been planned by his interlocutors. Results show, first, that the exchanges analyzed present features indicative of both spontaneity and (limited) planification. Second, that Houli makes key contributions to the unfolding of the interactions shown in the recordings and that he does so in a cooperative and apparently relaxed manner, which could at best provide only partial support to his allegations. It is claimed that forensic linguistic analysis can generate valuable insights within terrorism-related legal proceedings.

Matters of care or matters of security: feminist reflections on prosecuting terrorism financing

ABSTRACT International treaties and European directives have put new legal responsibilities on EU member states to pre-emptively monitor and prosecute terrorist activities and offences. In particular, the prosecution of terrorism financing has been an important focus to prevent material and ideological support for terrorist organisations. Yet, a clear distinction between humanitarian aid and terrorism financing in a complex war zone is not always easy to draw: Which of the involved parties is perceived as a terrorist threat, and what is exactly considered humanitarian aid work? In this paper, we empirically unpack how EU counter-terrorism laws and policies are actually practiced during court trials. We investigate the legal distinction between humanitarian aid and terrorism financing in Syria, specifically centring on trials from the Netherlands and Germany. Drawing on the growing debates in critical security and legal studies on materiality, we focus on how materials presented during trials such as baby products, weapons, and money, are inscribed with a particular security logic to reach a legal verdict. Introducing the concept of “matters of care/security”, we connect these debates and findings to insights from feminist and post-colonial studies to critically inquire how racialised and gendered assumptions on terrorist threat impact terrorism trials.

Ethiopia’s 1984/85 famine and the Red Terror Trials

Processes of justice and accountability have long overlooked the death and suffering resulting from famines. This article examines how various domestic and international actors involved in the Red Terror Trials (1992–2010) framed the 1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia and what explains the absence of famine-related cases from the trials. Based on archival sources and interviews, the article discusses how the Red Terror Trials offered an opportunity to prosecute famine-related cases. The study shows, however, that despite the framing of the famine as ‘political’ and an act of crime by various actors, the Red Terror Trials were silent about the famine. One explanation is the difficulty of establishing a legal case based on famine-related casualties, coupled with a lack of incentive as there were already enough criminal cases to prosecute former Dergue regime officials. The complicated political history of the famine and its causes, which might implicate various domestic and international actors and not just the Dergue officials, can also explain the absence of the famine-related cases from the trials.

Emerging Cyber Security Threats: India’s Concerns and Options

It has been believed that cyber power, along with conventional aspects such as economic resources and political will, is becoming a key component of national power. According to this logic, the country that can best lead and control cyber power would be more powerful than others. Cyber terrorism has arisen as a new phenomenon in India and investigations about terror attacks revealed the cyber terrorism trials. Furthermore, the reliance of government organizations, businesses, economic operations, and military affairs on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) demands the inclusion of cyber technology in strategic calculations. So, this essay recons to building cyber power capacity may be used as a tool of Indian foreign policy, leveraging the experience and human resources in the area, as well as enhancing local and global cyber cooperation.

An Anthropologist in Court and out of Place

In this rejoinder to Wiersinga’s article which deals with my role as an Expert Witness in a Dutch terrorism trial, I will respond based upon my notes at the time and my subsequent reflections about it. As I will show, the anthropologist and the judge can, and should, meet but this also turns the neutrality of the researcher into a matter debate. Furthermore, in this meeting anthropological knowledge becomes entangled with other logics and methods which raises many ethical questions as Wiersinga has rightfully pointed out. These questions and issues are not specific for the case I was involved in but has a bearing on the issue of cultural expertise in a broader sense for the time. I end my contribution with two pleas: one for more reflection among anthropologists on ethical issues in relation to cultural expertise and another to academic institutions to support their scholars in court.

Courtroom Ethnography in the Context of Terrorism: A Multi-Level Approach

This paper addresses terrorism trials as sites of research and proposes an approach for the analysis of ethnographic data collected during these trials. The suggested approach offers multi-level analytical access, it centers around interactionist conceptions and knowledge discourses. The conceptual framework we suggest is spelled out in terms of how to observe and being sensitive of (re-)production of power structures inside the courtroom as well as in regard to relations imported into the courtroom. For this purpose, we integrate (i) the micro-level of courtroom interactions and (ii) (self-)presentation, (iii) the meso-level of knowledge (re)production and the establishment of knowledge orders and (iv) an intersectional perspective on gender, race, and class in knowledge discourses. By applying a multi-level approach, we open up new explanatory avenues to understand the constitution of terrorism as a socio-legal object. The methodical framework connects hitherto unconnected elements, that is, participants’ interactions and negotiation, their (self-)representations, ascriptions and narrative performances, and knowledge (re-)production in order to establish or maintain political and social orders.

France / United States, two responses to terrorism

U.S. terrorism trials are very different from French trials. There are multiple jurisdictions for trials and although la partie civile is not involved in criminal trial, it has recourse for compensation in civil cases. Federal criminal proceedings are adversarial, and the prosecution and defense are in constant negotiation as to charges and sentences. Terrorism trials are subject to special laws that criminalize material support for terrorism and carry enhance sentences for convicted terrorists. The guilt phase of the trial takes place in front of a jury, and lawyers from both sides ask questions of witnesses, with the presiding judge only addressing questions of law. Once convicted, a defendant faces a separate sentencing trial, which is often in front of a judge. After sentencing, convicted terrorists are subject to special measures isolating them and limiting their communications with the outside world.

The Facets of Transitional Justice and 'Red Terror' Mass Trials of Derg Officials in Post-1991 Ethiopia: Reassessing its Achievements and Pitfalls

At the end of the state perpetrated largescale violence, two important puzzling questions need to be addressed by post-conflict states. The first one chiefly concern how to ensure accountability or fight impunity, and the second is concerned with how to transform a society wrecked by prolonged conflicts into a durable peace in a non-violent means (Jarstad &amp; Sisk, 2008). One such effort to deal with these questions was implementation of a transitional justice measures which evolved to encompass broader themes in addition to criminal accountability and it has shown a considerable relevance and expansion since the end of Cold War. After the demise of Marxist military junta of Derg regime in 1991, the Transitional Government of Ethiopia attempted to respond to the Derg-era atrocities of Red Terror through the establishment of Special Prosecution Office (SPO) in 1992. Ethiopia’s SPO undertook one of the most extensive criminal investigations after Nuremburg trials by its own resources and domestic tribunals and the mass trials lasted for nearly two decades. However, the assessment about its significance for domestic political transformation and its legacy remained largely untold. The aim of this paper is to make a critical review of available works on the ‘red terror trials’ and reconsider its achievements and pitfalls and to interrogate as to whether it can still provide important lessons for today’s reality. By critically reviewing available literatures and official reports, the paper found that the efforts of Red Terror trials partly succeeded in ending impunity, averting tendency of summary executions and revenge killings, and in eliciting some ‘truths. However, the measure was affected by severe limitations including the adopting the narrower model of transitional justice measures chiefly focusing on criminal prosecutions, and also questioned legitimacy of trials amidst human rights violations by the new regime itself. These limitations coupled with other factors constrained the capacity of the Derg’s Red Terror trials so that it remained short of being translated into a lasting legacy in terms of meaningful political transformation.

Unfolding the Past, Proving the Present: Social Media Evidence in Terrorism Finance Court Cases

AbstractDuring terrorism trials, social media activities such as tweeting, Facebook posts, and WhatsApp conversations have become an essential part of the evidence presented. Amidst the complexity of prosecuting crimes with limited possibilities for criminal investigations and evidence collection, social media interactions can provide valuable information to reconstruct events that occurred there-and-then, to prosecute in the here-and-now. This paper follows social media objects as evidentiary objects in different court judgments to research how security practices and knowledge interact with legal practices in the court room. I build on the notion of the folding object as described by Bruno Latour and Amade M'charek to research the practices and arguments of the judges through which they unfold some of the histories, interpretations, and politics inside the object as reliable evidence. This concept allows for an in-depth examination of how histories are entangled in the presentation of an evidentiary object and how these references to histories are made (in)visible during legal discussions on security and terrorism. The paper therefore contributes to the field of critical security studies by focusing on how security practices are mediated in the everyday legal settings of domestic court rooms.

The “Paper Case”: Evidence and Narrative of a Terrorism Trial in Delhi

Through an ethnography of a terrorism trial that followed bomb-blasts in Delhi in 2008, this article seeks to understand the centrality of files and documentary practices to the production of legal truth. By following key documents regarding the case against one man I call Fahad, I argue that the truth produced in a trial crucially depends a chain of seemingly insignificant certificatory practices-the signatures, countersignatures, stamps, and seals that appear on documents. What emerges in the account I provide is that juridical truth is less a matter of finding ‘what really happened,’ and more about the competition between narratives that depend on the certificatory correctness of humble sheets of paper.

The social life of technicalities: ‘Terrorist’ lives in Delhi’s courts

How do we imagine the place of courtrooms in relation to society? There have been two dominant ways that ethnographers have viewed trials. The first treats trials as ways of understanding social structures and political power. In relation to terrorism trials, the courtroom becomes the arena in which nationalist politics can be re-enacted. There is the space of a pre-existing society—with all its hierarchies and conflicts—and the court case is then merely affixed to the social. The second way, which has a minor role in scholarship on India, has imagined courtrooms as theatrical spaces in which society is discursively constructed. In this article, I argue that an ethnography of courtrooms can be a way of accessing the space of courtroom on its own terms. I argue that the technologies of law set in place their own relations and forms of sociality and that the courtroom is a world in and of itself. Based on an ethnography of terrorism trials in Delhi, I show how the terrorism trial is not only the arena in which bigger contestations over nationalism and religious identity may play out; it is also the space in which new forms of life specific to the courtroom emerge.