2023-10-28

Law No. 15/2023 of August 28 Establishing the Legal Regime for Prevention, Repression and Combating Terrorism and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique enacts Law No. 15/2023 to establish a comprehensive legal regime for preventing, repressing, and combating terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The legislation defines key terms such as foreign terrorist fighters and designated non-financial entities, mandates travel embargoes, cybersecurity controls, and community radicalization prevention programs, and aligns national sanctions with United Nations Security Council resolutions. It establishes specific criminal offenses and corresponding prison sentences for terrorist acts, international terrorism, incitement, financing, and the illicit handling of nuclear, chemical, and biological materials.

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REPUBLIC GAZETTE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOZAMBIQUE SUMMARY NOTICE The matter to be published in the «Boletim da República» must be submitted as a duly authenticated copy, one for each subject matter, containing, in addition to the necessary indications for this purpose, the following endorsement, signed and authenticated: For publication in the «Boletim da República». NATIONAL PRESS OF MOZAMBIQUE, E.P.

ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC: Law No. 15/2023: Law establishing the Legal Regime for Prevention, Repression and Combating Terrorism and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and repealing Law No. 13/2022, of July 8. Monday, August 28, 2023 | I SERIES — Number 166 2nd SUPPLEMENT

ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC Law No. 15/2023 of August 28 Given the need to review Law No. 13/2022, of July 8, which establishes the Legal Regime for Prevention, Repression and Combating Terrorism and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, in order to align with the international legal instruments binding the Mozambican State, under Article 178(1) of the Constitution of the Republic, the Assembly of the Republic determines:

CHAPTER I General Provisions Article 1 (Object) The present Law establishes the legal regime for prevention, repression and combating terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Article 2 (Scope) The present Law applies to the prevention, repression and combating of terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, related actions, and acts by terrorists and terrorist organizations, committed within national territory or abroad, whose perpetrators are located in national territory and cannot be extradited.

Article 3 (Definitions)

  1. For the purposes of this Law, the following are understood as: a) Foreign terrorist fighter – any individual with one or more nationalities who: i. travels or attempts to travel to a country different from their residence or nationality, for the purpose of perpetrating, planning, preparing or participating in terrorist acts or related actions, providing or receiving training or logistical support for terrorist or related actions; ii. organizes, facilitates or recruits other individuals to travel to a country different from their residence or nationality for the purpose of perpetrating, planning, preparing or participating in terrorist acts, or providing or receiving training for the practice of terrorist acts or related actions. b) Designated non-financial entities – those that pursue designated non-financial activities and professions (DNFAP) and include casinos, real estate agents, dealers in gems and precious metals, car dealers, lawyers, notaries, other independent professionals, accountants, and trust service providers. c) Funds – assets of any kind, whether corporeal or incorporeal, tangible or intangible, movable or immovable, acquired by any means, whether situated in the Republic of Mozambique or elsewhere, and documents or legal instruments, in any form, including electronic or digital, evidencing the right to, or interest in, such assets. d) Funds or other assets – any assets, including but not limited to virtual assets, financial assets, economic resources (including petroleum and other natural resources), goods of any kind, tangible or intangible, movable or immovable, acquired, and documents or legal instruments of any nature, including electronic and digital, proving ownership or interests in such funds or other assets, including but not limited to bank credits, travel checks, bank checks, payment orders, shares, bonds, drafts or letters of credit, and any interest, dividends, or other income or values arising from or generated by such funds or other assets, and any other assets that may potentially be used to obtain funds, goods or services. 1992 — (28) I SERIES — NUMBER 166 e) Immediate and without delay – decision-making within a maximum period of 24 hours after an addition, amendment or revocation is made to the International List by the competent United Nations body. For national designations, the obligation to act without delay is triggered by a designation at the national level, presented on the own initiative of the Republic of Mozambique or upon request by another State, as soon as there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person, group or entity meets the criteria for inclusion in the National List. In both cases, the word “immediate” must be interpreted in the context of preventing the evasion or dissipation of funds or other assets linked to designated persons, groups or entities, and the need for a coordinated global action to quickly halt and unravel this flow. f) International instruments – United Nations Security Council Resolutions related to the prevention and combating of terrorism, counter-terrorism financing or proliferation financing of weapons of mass destruction approved under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, including but not limited to Resolutions 1267 (1999), 1373 (2001), 2253 (2015), 1718 (2006), 1874 (2009), 2087 (2013), 2094 (2013), 2231 (2015), 2270 (2016), 2321 (2016), 2356 (2017), 1904, 1989, and 2083, and all currently in force resolutions as well as successor and future resolutions. g) International list – the list of all natural and legal persons, groups, organizations and entities subject to targeted financial sanctions, in accordance with the International Instruments, together with all associated information. h) Competent United Nations body – The Security Council Sanctions Committee established under Resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015); the Security Council Sanctions Committee for the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda; the Security Council Sanctions Committee established under Resolution 1988 (2011); the Security Council Sanctions Committees established under Resolution 1718 (2006); and the Security Council itself, whenever acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter in adopting financial sanctions related to the prevention, suppression and combating of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their financing. i) Designated person or entity – a natural or legal person, group, organization or entity included in the international or national list. j) Focal point – the body established under Security Council Resolution 1730 (2006) to receive and consider requests for the removal of persons listed by the United Nations from those listed by the Sanctions Committee for the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.
  2. The remaining terms used in this Law are contained in the attached glossary, which forms an integral part.

Article 4 (Spatial Application) Regardless of the nationality of the offender, the provisions of this Law apply to acts: a) committed within national territory; b) committed abroad, where the responsible parties are legal persons or entities acting in any form of representation abroad, whose seats are located in Mozambican territory, as well as natural persons acting under their legal or voluntary representation; c) committed on board ships and aircraft registered under Mozambican Law, unless otherwise provided by an international treaty or convention; d) committed by stateless persons who have their habitual residence in Mozambican territory; e) committed outside national territory, when they concern the commission of crimes provided for under this Law.

Article 5 (Protection of civil rights)

  1. The provisions of this Law do not apply to the individual or collective conduct of persons in political demonstrations, social movements, trade unions, religious, class or professional category movements, driven by socially or claim-oriented purposes protected by law, aiming to contest, criticize, protest or support in order to defend legal and constitutional rights, guarantees and freedoms.
  2. The provisions of paragraph 1 of this article do not exempt from criminal liability the practice of acts contrary to the law, which do not aim to defend legal and constitutional rights, guarantees and freedoms.

CHAPTER II Preventive Measures Article 6 (Travel and residence embargo)

  1. Competent authorities must prevent the movement of terrorists or terrorist groups through effective border control and control over the issuance of identity and travel documents, as well as the granting of refugee status, and adopt measures to prevent forgery or fraudulent use of identification and travel documents.
  2. The issuance of visas must be refused to persons who constitute a danger or threat to public order, security or national defense due to their involvement in activities related to the practice of terrorist acts.
  3. Any type of visa must be cancelled when its holder constitutes a danger or threat to national defense, public order, security and tranquility, and state security due to their involvement in activities related to the practice of terrorist acts.

Article 7 (Prevention of radicalization)

  1. The Government must strengthen measures to prevent recruitment and radicalization for terrorism that promote: a) community awareness programs on the danger and harms of radicalization for terrorism; b) exit mechanisms to support persons wishing to abandon violent extremism; c) strategies for citizen inclusion in society, aiming to reduce and/or prevent radical ideals.
  2. Measures must be adopted in penitentiary establishments to reduce the risks of recruitment and radicalization for terrorism. 28 DE AGOSTO DE 2023 1992 — (29)

Article 8 (Security means and electronic surveillance) In public and private places open to the public, measures must be adopted to prevent terrorist acts through the installation of security and electronic surveillance means.

Article 9 (Cybersecurity) Network operators, telecommunications service providers and virtual asset providers must adopt cybersecurity control measures in the context of prevention, repression and combating terrorism.

Article 10 (Refusal to grant nationality)

  1. The granting of Mozambican nationality is refused to foreigners who constitute a danger or threat to national defense and state security due to their involvement in activities related to the practice of terrorist acts.
  2. Grounds for opposing the acquisition of Mozambican nationality include the existence of a danger or threat to national defense or state security due to their involvement in activities related to the practice of terrorist acts.
  3. Without prejudice to the provisions of the Penal Code and specific legislation, the ancillary penalty of expulsion must be applied to foreign citizens who commit any of the crimes provided for in this Law or when their conduct constitutes a serious danger or threat to public order, security or national defense, and must also be applied to those with permanent residence.

CHAPTER III Terrorism and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction SECTION I Terrorist Activity Article 11 (Terrorism)

  1. A person commits the crime of terrorism who, by action or omission, intentionally performs the following terrorist acts: a) placing or causing to be placed, by any means, on a ship or aircraft, drone or similar devices, in public or private locations or installations, as well as in any equipment for public or private use, any artifact or device capable of destroying or damaging them, endangering human or animal lives, the safety of goods and locations; b) destroying an aircraft in service or causing damage that renders it unfit for flight or, by its nature, constitutes a danger to the safety of the aircraft in flight or on the ground; c) placing or causing to be placed, by any means, in an aircraft in service, a motor or substance capable of destroying that aircraft, or causing damage that renders it unfit for flight, or causing damage that, by its nature, may constitute a danger to the safety of aircraft in flight or on the ground; d) communicating false information of which they have knowledge, endangering the safety of aircraft in flight or on the ground; e) disseminating or transmitting information of which they have knowledge that is false, endangering the safety of aircraft in flight or on land; f) committing an act of violence against a person in an airport used for international civil aviation that causes or is capable of causing serious injury or death; g) destroying or seriously damaging the facilities of an airport used by international civil aviation or an aircraft on the ground not in operation, or affecting the functioning of airport services, whenever such act threatens or is capable of threatening the safety of that airport; h) assassinating, kidnapping or attacking another person or the liberty of a person internationally protected; i) violently attacking official or private facilities or means of transport of an internationally protected person, capable of causing fear or danger to their owner or liberty, or threatening to commit such attack; j) illegally taking or detaining, holding hostage, threatening, killing, injuring or imprisoning another person with the aim of obliging a State, a Government or any national or international organization of an economic, social or political nature, a natural or legal person, or a group of persons, to perform or refrain from performing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage; k) receiving, importing, exporting, manufacturing, storing, acquiring, selling or transferring by any means, as well as transporting, holding, using and carrying substances or instruments that are flammable, explosive, firearms, asphyxiating agents, toxic agents, minerals with radioactive potential, chemical, biological or nuclear agents or any other element whose combination may result in products of the same nature or of any other substance or artifact, outside legal conditions, contrary to the prescriptions of competent authorities, if their authors intended them or should have known that they were intended for the practice of any crime against state security; l) stealing, robbing, diverting or fraudulently obtaining minerals with radioactive potential or nuclear material; m) committing an act constituting a search for nuclear materials, by threat or use of force or any other form of intimidation; n) threatening to use nuclear materials to cause death or serious injury to any person or substantial material damage, or committing an offense described in paragraph (m) of paragraph 1 of this article to oblige a natural or legal person, a State, a Government or any national or international organization of an economic, social or political nature to perform or refrain from performing any act; o) distributing, placing, unloading or detonating an explosive or other lethal device in or against a public place, a State or a public installation, a public transport system or infrastructure with the intention of causing death or serious bodily injury, or extensive destruction of such place, installation or systems, and that this destruction results in major economic losses; 1992 — (30) I SERIES — NUMBER 166 p) taking possession of a ship or controlling it by force or threat of force or by any other form of intimidation; q) committing an act of violence against a person on board a ship, if such act is capable of endangering the safety of navigation of the ship; r) destroying or causing damage to a ship or its cargo that may prejudice the safety of navigation; s) placing or causing to be placed, by any means, a device or substance capable of destroying or causing damage to a ship or its cargo that endangers or may endanger the safety of navigation; t) destroying or damaging maritime navigation facilities or seriously interfering with their functioning, if such act is capable of endangering the safety of a ship's navigation; u) unloading, from an oil tanker, liquefied natural gas or other dangerous or noxious substance not covered by paragraph (k) of paragraph 1 of this article, in a quantity or concentration that causes or may cause death, injury or serious damage; v) disseminating information known to be false, thereby endangering the safety of navigation of a ship.
  2. The crime of terrorism is also committed by those who intentionally: a) threaten to perform any of the acts provided for in paragraph 1 of this article, with or without conditions, to oblige a natural or legal person to perform or refrain from performing any act, if such threat is capable of endangering the safety of navigation; b) transport a person on board a ship, knowing that this person has committed an act constituting a crime of terrorism as provided for in this article, and with the intention of helping that person escape criminal action; c) take possession of a fixed platform or exercise control over it by force, threat of force or any other form of intimidation; d) commit an act of violence against a person on board a fixed platform, so as to endanger its safety; e) destroy a fixed platform or cause damage capable of endangering its safety; f) commit an act of violence against a person on board an aircraft in flight, if such act is capable of endangering the safety of that aircraft; g) unload and/or use any explosive, radioactive or biological, chemical and nuclear weapon in a manner to cause death, serious injury or serious damage to its user on a fixed platform; h) commit any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not actively participating in hostilities in an armed conflict situation, when the objective of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to oblige a government or an international organization to do or refrain from doing any act.
  3. The accomplice, as well as those who organize or induce others to commit one or more crimes provided for in this Law, are punished under Articles 23 and 24 of this Law.
  4. The attempt to commit the crimes provided for in this Law is punished under paragraph 3 of this article.

Article 12 (International terrorism)

  1. A person commits the crime of international terrorism who, by any means, directly or indirectly, with the intention of harming the integrity or independence of a foreign State, destroys, alters or undermines the functioning of that State's institutions or international public organizations, forces their authorities to perform certain acts, refrain from performing them or tolerate that they are performed, provokes a state of terror in the population or part thereof, or intimidates certain persons, groups of persons or the general public, through the terrorist acts provided for in this Law.
  2. The penalty applicable to the crime of international terrorism is added to those of other crimes committed, with its aggravation always occurring when the crime of homicide concurs.

Article 13 (Instigation to terrorism) Those who instigate others to commit a terrorist act or related action, or to constitute a legal person, group, organization or terrorist association, are punished with a prison sentence of 20 to 24 years.

Article 14 (Incitement to the practice of terrorism)

  1. Those who, by any means, disseminate or induce a third party to disseminate a message, inciting the practice of the facts provided for in Article 11 of this Law, are punished with a prison sentence of 12 to 16 years.
  2. For a message to be interpreted as incitement to terrorism, the following must be taken into account: a) the content of the statements as a whole; b) the circumstances and manner in which they are published.

Article 15 (Public apology of terrorism)

  1. Those who, in a public meeting, through mass media, by dissemination of writing or other technical reproduction means, reward or support, directly or indirectly, a natural or legal person, group, organization or entity for the practice of the facts provided for in Articles 11, 12 and 13 of this Law in a way that creates the danger of committing another crime of the same kind, as well as perform acts that objectively demonstrate discredit, contempt or humiliation towards the victims of terrorist acts or their families, are punished with a prison sentence of 8 to 12 years.
  2. When the facts provided for in paragraph 1 of this article are practiced through electronic media accessible via the Internet, the offender is punished with a prison sentence of 12 to 16 years.

Article 16 (Radicalization) Those who promote the radicalization for terrorism of natural or legal persons, groups, organizations or entities are punished with a prison sentence of 20 to 24 years, aggravated by one quarter in their minimum and maximum limits. 28 DE AGOSTO DE 2023 1992 — (31)

SECTION II Collection and dissemination of information Article 17 (Collection of information) Those who collect, generate or transmit information for the use or practice of a terrorist act or related action are punished with a prison sentence of 16 to 20 years.

Article 18 (Dissemination of information)

  1. Those who, by legal duty, have custody or are state employees or agents and access classified information and disseminate it by any means within the scope of this Law, are punished with a prison sentence of 12 to 16 years.
  2. Those who, whether Mozambican, foreign or stateless, residing or present in the Republic of Mozambique, make or publicly reproduce statements regarding terrorist acts that they know to be false or grossly distorted, with the intention of creating public panic, disturbance, insecurity and disorder, are punished with a prison sentence of 2 to 8 years.

Article 19 (Terrorism financing) The practice of acts qualified as the crime of terrorism financing is punished under the legal regime for prevention and combating money laundering, counter-terrorism financing and proliferation financing of weapons of mass destruction.

SECTION III Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Article 20 (Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction)

  1. A person commits the crime of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction who intentionally: a) receives, holds, uses, transfers, alters, alienates or disperses nuclear, chemical and biological materials without legal authorization and causing or capable of causing death or serious injury to others or considerable damage to property; b) steals or robs nuclear materials; c) diverts or otherwise transports...