The attack on the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in 2015 showed that there is an unquestionable link between illegal migration and terrorism, the Chief Security Advisor to the Prime Minister said on the public service television news channel M1 on Wednesday.

On the programme, György Bakondi was asked about the incident in connection with the fact that the trial of the persons accused of the bloody Jihadist attacks committed in January 2015 began in Paris on Wednesday.

Fourteen persons are standing trial accused of providing logistic assistance for the three perpetrators who killed seventeen people over the course of just a few days. At the editorial office of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, they killed twelve people and wounded another eleven. They shot dead a police officer, then took hostages in a kosher supermarket and killed four of them.

In Mr Bakondi’s opinion, the attack was a “lesson” from which “Europe did not learn” given that it was followed by further, even more serious acts of terrorism on the continent.

He said “already back then, the facts clearly showed that […] there is an unquestionable link between illegal immigration and terrorism”. According to his information, acts of terrorism were also committed in France as well as in other countries by persons who were already under surveillance by the secret services due to their known radicalisation; “however, there was no effective means to prevent their actions”.

In his view, in addition to foreigners granted refugee status who have been convicted due to acts of terrorism or organised crime, perpetrators committing lesser crimes should also be expelled by the recipient countries.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister / MTI)