Islamist terrorists are
infiltrating themselves among asylum seekers to enter the EU,
Europol Counterterrorism Chief Manuel Navarrete Paniagua told a
European Parliament civil liberties committee hearing on Monday.
"Terrorists are using the migrant flow to infiltrate the
EU," he said.
"We don't have systematic data, but we know they are doing
so. This is why we need secondary checks at the member State
level, especially in Greece and Italy".
Europol has deployed officers alongside Frontex ones at
hotspots on four Greek islands and Sicily to keep an eye out for
possible terrorists, he added.
"However, member States are in charge... and they decide
what to do with any suspects," Navarrete Paniagua said.
"We must not let the terrorists victimize the migrants
twice over," he told MEPs. "First by forcing them to flee their
homelands, and then by using them to infiltrate into the EU".
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