The Swiss Council of States agreed earlier this week to allow for the deportation of terrorists to their home countries even if they face the death penalty in them.
The Council of States decided earlier this week that terrorists “must be able to be deported to their country of origin even though they may be tortured or sentenced to death” 22 votes to 18, Swiss broadcaster RTS reports.
Left-wing politicians expressed their opposition to the move, claiming it would go against the Swiss constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Geneva Convention.
Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter argued against the motion, pointing a section of the Swiss constitution which states that “no-one shall be returned to the territory of a state in which he or she risks torture or other cruel and inhuman punishment or treatment.”
Despite the protests, the Council of States decided that the security of Switzerland was a more important than Keller-Sutter’s interpretation of the constitution.
The Council of States also eased up on anti-terrorism laws by dismissing a proposal to make it illegal and punishable by three years in prison to express support for a terrorist attack.
The policy marks a distinct break from the standard operating procedure in most European countries, which usually struggle with deporting terrorists back to their homelands.
In 2016, for example, Breitbart London reported that judges in the United Kingdom were preventing the deportation of several terrorists and others to countries in the Middle East, specifically citing the risk of either torture or the death penalty being applied to them.
The fact that European authorities will often refuse to deport people back to countries that employ the death penalty has also reached migrants who had arrived following the height of the migrant crisis in 2015.
This was highlighted when public prosecutors’ offices in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe in Germany claimed more and more migrants were admitting to being terrorists specifically so that they would not be deported after a failed asylum application.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com