US Attorney General Stresses Prevention in Anti-terrorism

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, October 25, 2002

US Attorney General Stresses Prevention in Anti-terrorism

Visiting U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft emphasized on the role of prevention in countering terrorism at a breakfast meeting held in Hong Kong Friday.

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Visiting U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft emphasized on the role of prevention in countering terrorism at a breakfast meeting held in Hong Kong Friday.

Ashcroft pointed out that the threat of punishment by law is not adequate to deter those who are willing to die in the commission of crime.

"We need to do more than threat and punish them. We need to find a way to prevent," Ashcroft addressed the meeting jointly hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and the Asia Society.

"The war against terrorism has cost us to adjust our activities, not to abandon the idea of prosecution, but to refocus on the idea of prevention," he said.

He summarized the three steps in combating terrorism as "delay, interrupt and defeat."

Ashcroft urged international cooperation in dealing with the terrorists, who "fragmented their activities, making the traditional law enforcement less effective in detecting their operations."

"No single jurisdiction would be able to evaluate the complete impact until the objective had been achieved and disaster and tragedy had been imposed. We need to match that fragmentation of this endeavor, which makes it hard to detect and hard to interrupt, with a kind of integration and cooperation that allow us to piece together to prevent these acts before they transpire," he continued.

He highlighted the international cooperation in information exchange, upon which preventive acts to deter terrorism are based.

He also praised the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government for its efforts in fighting terrorism, particularly, in the aspect of interrupting the flow of financing for terrorists.

Ashcroft said that terrorists cannot terrorize without money, and, in order to win the war against terrorism, both terrorists and their financial backers must be identified, disrupted and apprehended.

He said that he would meet senior HKSAR government officials later Friday to discuss anti-terrorism issues.

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