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EXTERNAL THREATS According to former German Defense Minister Peter Struck , Germany does not face a conventional threat to its territory. In his own words, “At present, and in the foreseeable future, a conventional threat to the German territory is not recognizable.” INTERNAL THREATS At the end of 2004, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution identified 24 , the German People's Union , and the National Democratic Party Of Germany . The far-right German People’s Union holds six seats in the Brandenburg state parliament and one seat in the Bremen state parliament. At the end of 2004, the far left, which has revolutionary Marxist and Anarchist factions, had about 30,800 adherents. Only about 1,000 out of 65,800 members of the Party Of Democratic Socialism support a communist platform. Approximately 5,500 far-left extremists are deemed to be capable of violence. TERRORISM Following Al Qaeda ’s September 11, 2001 , terrorist attack against the United States , Germans were surprised to learn that the mastermind of the strike and several accomplices previously had been living in Hamburg . Since then, Germany has been a reliable partner in the United States-led War On Terrorism , according to the U.S. Department of State. German courts have a very high standard of proof, which has made it difficult for authorities to convict or deport terrorist suspects. In February 2003, a Hamburg court convicted Mounir El Motassadeq of aiding and abetting the conspiracy and sentenced him to the maximum available term of 15 years. However, in March 2004, the German supreme court overturned this conviction, which was the first in the world related to the 9/11 incident, for lack of evidence and remanded the case for retrial. Finally, in August 2005, a Hamburg court re-convicted el Motassadeq and sentenced him to a seven-year prison term. In another case, years of procedural maneuvers were required before the German judicial system finally succeeded in October 2004 in deporting an Islamic extremist, the so-called “caliph of Cologne,” to Turkey. In yet another case, in July 2005 a Syrian-German terrorist suspect was released from custody after the German supreme court ruled that he could not be extradited to Spain under a European Union arrest warrant because this step would violate Germany’s Basic Law . SEE ALSO REFERENCE |
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