BERLIN, Sept 18: Germany’s justice minister on Tuesday proposed making it a crime to train for terrorist acts or to obtain weapons or other substances in order to carry out an attack.The proposal from Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries came as Germany considers how to tighten anti-terror laws following the Sept 4 arrest of three alleged Islamic radicals accused of plotting car bombings in the country.

Zypries said she hoped to target ‘’acts of preparation ahead of terrorist acts of violence.’’

A proposed new offence of ‘’preparing an act of violence’’ would carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

The Justice Ministry said the offence would cover, for example, a person directed to carry out a bombing in Germany who travels to a terrorist camp in Pakistan to receive explosives training, or a person who undergoes flight training in order to hijack an aircraft.

The ministry said, however, the law would apply only to training with the specific intent to carry out a terrorist attack —meaning that attending a training camp, in itself, would not necessarily be a crime.

The new law also would apply to anyone producing, obtaining or storing weapons, explosives, detonators or other substances — for example, viruses, poisons or radioactive material —intended for use in an attack. It would cover people supplying money for an attack or collecting money to finance one.

Authorities have said that the three men arrested this month had trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan. They also had obtained large quantities of 35 per cent hydrogen peroxide solution, used to make explosives, according to authorities.

A second new criminal offence of ‘’instructions for an act of violence’’ would carry a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

It would apply to anyone distributing instructions over the Internet on, for example, building bombs for use in an attack, or to anyone downloading such instructions.

Germany already toughened its anti-terror legislation after it emerged that three of the Sept 11, 2001, suicide pilots had lived in Hamburg, for example making membership in a foreign terrorist group a crime.

Still, this month’s arrests amplified calls for new legislation, and highlighted differences inside conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s left-right ‘’grand coalition’’ with Zypries’ center-left Social Democrats.

Bavarian state Interior Minister Guenther Beckstein, a prominent conservative, said Zypries’ plan to punish those who attend terror camps was ‘’completely insufficient,’’ complaining that it failed to cover people who start plotting an attack only after they return from training. That amounts to a loophole that Zypries ‘’must close as soon as possible,’’ Beckstein said in a statement.

Conservatives have already called for quick approval of proposals giving police greater powers to snoop on Internet users. Members of the Social Democrats have argued that permitting increased online searches could be an invasion of personal privacy, and oppose rushing through legislation.

Conservative Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, annoyed the Social Democrats over the weekend by saying he might order the shooting down of hijacked airliners to avert a Sept 11-style attack, even though the country’s supreme court has thrown out a law permitting such action.

The opposition Greens accused Zypries of ‘’giving way to the panic-mongers’’ in the ranks of Merkel’s Christian Democrats. In a statement, the party argued this month’s arrests show that ‘’the security architecture in Germany is intact.’’—AP