Complicity

Complicity involves two or more persons committing a crime in common, for which they have a common intent. There may or my not have been prior agreement. A crime involving complicity presents a greater social danger, since it may do especially appreciable harm to the interests of the state as well as the legal interests of citizens, and since it makes it easier for the accomplices to conceal the traces of their crime.

Liability for a crime is not limited to the person who actually commits the proscribed act. Rather, liability extends to anyone who has encouraged (incited) or assisted (abetted) perpetration of the crime or who has hindered apprehension of the perpetrator after commission of the offence. All such persons are regarded as parties to the crime and will be liable as if they themselves had committed the criminal act.

Recent cases of complicity have brought to light governmental assistance, which raises the question of governmental liability. Some incidents include: official Mexican complicity in narcotics traffic; the French government's complicity in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior; Soviet complicity in the false defection of KGB agents to the USA; and various US-backed coup attempts in developing countries.