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BEIJING - More international cooperation is needed to combat the terror threat to civilian aircraft nine years after the Sept 11 attacks on the US, a senior official of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said on Wednesday.
The terror threat still remains and it is in every nation's interest to boost communication, ICAO Legal Officer Huang Jiefang told China Daily.
For example, in some cases organizers of terror attacks on aircraft and airports did not receive due punishment, Huang said. In other cases alleged offenders were not extradited on "political" grounds.
There were a number of occasions when hijackers claimed their actions were "political", but the convention and protocol covers this area.
The Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts relating to International Civil Aviation (also known as the Beijing Convention) and the Protocol Supplementary to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft (or the Beijing Protocol) were adopted on Sept 10, just a day before the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
The convention and protocol cover extradition and prosecution, hijacking, aircraft being used as weapons and the transport of hazardous goods, as well as other areas.
On extradition, the country where the alleged offender is found should either extradite that person or submit the case for prosecution, Huang said, and the defense of "political" action will no longer be applied to hijackers.
Using aircraft as a weapon to attack ground targets will be a criminal offense and making a threat against civil aviation may trigger criminal liability if judges believed the threat was credible and feasible.
The transport of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and related materials will also be illegal and punishable.
Transport experts believe commercial aircraft remain a top target for terrorists, and while no attack on the scale of 9/11 has taken place since that September day there have been a number of terror attempts on aircraft.
On March 7, 2008, a 19-year-old Uygur woman attempted to blow up a China Southern plane from Urumqi to Beijing with two men, by trying to ignite a beverage can containing flammable liquid in the toilet. Masterminded by "Eastern Turkestan" separatists from abroad, the attempt was foiled after crew members smelled gasoline.
Huang said that countries have to exchange information to fight the scourge of terror.
"Countries should not just 'shovel away snow from their own front door and not bother about other homes being buried in snow'," he said. "Citizens of any country could be the victim of a terrorist attack, so strengthening cooperation in this field is in accordance with every nation's interests."
With the convention and protocol, the ICAO is "giving the international community a signal that any sabotage on civil aviation will not be tolerated", he said.
The convention and protocol will become international law after legislative bodies of at least 22 member states approve them. At the ICAO conference in Beijing, 19 countries, including the US, the United Kingdom and China, signed the documents.
Tan Zongyang contributed to this story.