PKK terror financier taken into custody

A Kurdish-Swede has been arrested by Spaniards along with 21 other PKK terrorists in Spain and France.  The operatives reportedly imposed a common Marxist guerrilla fundraising technique—a revolutionary tax—on their fellow Kurds to buy weapons for terrorism against Turkey.  From Sweden’s The Local on Feb. 16:

Madrid court remands Swede on terror charges

A 65-year-old Swedish man was on Friday remanded into custody by a Madrid court on suspicion of terror crimes connected to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PPK).

“According to information from the Spanish police, he is suspected of extortion for terrorist purposes,” said Catarina Axelsson at the Foreign Ministry’s press service.

The Swede and five others were arrested in Spain on Tuesday in a series of coordinated raids which also saw 16 arrested in France.

Those detained are all suspected of belonging to the terrorist-classified Kurdish separatist movement PKK. They are suspected of having coerced other Kurds into paying a so-called “revolution tax”.

According to the charges, the collections are intended to have been used to finance the purchase of explosives and weapons for terrorist activities in Turkey.

In the course of the raids, police seized weapons and cash.

According to news agency Europa Press the Madrid court released three of the six arrested in Spain, although they remain under suspicion and are not permitted to leave the country.

The 65-year-old Swede, who is reported to be resident in the south of Sweden, is receiving assistance from the embassy and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The PPK is a Kurdish organization founded in 1984 that fights against the Turkish state for an autonomous Kurdistan, as well as for the rights of Kurds in Turkey.

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Supreme Court to judge “material support” of terrorism

The Supreme Court will hear arguments today in Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, a case that assesses the constitutionality of banning material support to foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).

Counterterrorism Blog has linked to a helpful and detailed report by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) on the case.  As they point out, in enacting 18 U.S.C. § 2339B against material support, Congress intended to make FTO’s “radioactive” by allowing no support—whether that support comes in the form of money, safe houses, weapons, or personnel.

But some people just can’t take “no” for an answer, including supporters of the Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.  The PKK is the group that likes using IEDs to kill Turkish civilians periodically.

“Material support” is a major category of successful legal prosecutions of terrorist acts.  IPT found that 23 percent of all terrorism cases involve material support.

Chart by The Investigative Project for Terrorism