Security Council - Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) - police

CTED hosts 12th Regional counter-terrorism workshop for judges, prosecutors, and police in South Asia

BMUSONI — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 09:18:00 +0000

The 12^th Regional workshop for judges, prosecutors, and police in South Asia on effectively countering terrorism took place in Colombo from 5 to 7 June 2017. Over the past eight years, these regional workshops have involved over 300 senior judges, prosecutors, and police officials representing all eight member States of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Organized by the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), in cooperation with the Government of Sri Lanka and the Global Center on Cooperative Security, the workshop allows participants to identify a number of counter-terrorism-related gaps and potential solutions.

CTED and its partners continue to take their findings into account in facilitating the delivery of technical assistance aimed at strengthening Member States’ capacities in these areas.

Some of the participants in the workshop.

Representatives of numerous regional and international organizations have been engaged in the project, which provides law enforcement officials from across the region the opportunity to interact and share experiences with their counterparts on sensitive counter-terrorism-related issues.

The project has also fostered the creation of a regional online network of expert practitioners who are able to share information and good practices in a number of sensitive areas, including domestic and international cooperation in criminal matters, interview and interrogation, use of sensitive evidence, advanced investigative techniques, and gender.

Project donors include Australia, Canada, Denmark, India, Sweden, and the United States of America.

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ASEAN police in high-level observation visit to the Southeast European Law Enforcement Center

BMUSONI — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 21:29:00 +0000

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Participants in the visit to SELEC

Many terrorist groups are active in South-East Asia. Some aim to establish an Islamic “caliphate” encompassing the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia, and the Southern Philippines. The region also faces a new and growing threat posed by returnees from conflict zones in Iraq and Syria. International cooperation in investigating terrorism cases therefore continues to be crucial.

On 7-8 October 2015, the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) brought representatives of the police forces from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to the Southeast European Law Enforcement Center (SELEC) in Bucharest. The aim was for participants to learn about operational practices in the investigation of transnational crime, as well as administrative arrangements in running a regional organization. The Secretariat of ASEANAPOL, the platform for all ASEAN Police Forces, also participated in the visit.

ASEAN has concluded the 2007 Convention on Counter-Terrorism and the 2004 Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (MLA), both of which have been ratified by all ASEAN Member States. However, in the absence of formal regional mechanisms for judicial and law enforcement collaboration, cooperation takes place on a largely ad hoc basis.

To help remedy this, CTED’s South-East Asia initiative brings together participants from the Council of Europe, EUROJUST, Europol, INTERPOL, and SELEC. The October 2015 visit to SELEC followed two regional workshops on international joint investigations for ASEAN members, held in Malaysia in 2012 and 2013.

Visit participants agreed that the SELEC model might offer a good model for cooperation among States of South-East Asia and that ASEANAPOL could play a more active and prominent role in coordinating the investigation of transnational crimes, including terrorism, in the region.

As a follow-up, the ASEANAPOL Secretariat has invited CTED to attend the November 2015 meeting of ASEAN contact persons.

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9th Regional Workshop for Judges, Prosecutors, and Police Officers on Effectively Countering Terrorism in South Asia concludes

BMUSONI — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 19:11:00 +0000

On 4 November 2014, the 9th Regional Workshop for Judges, Prosecutors, and Police Officers on Effectively Countering Terrorism in South Asia concluded after three full days. Jointly hosted by the Government of the Republic of the Maldives and the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), the workshop was organized by the Global Center on Cooperative Security, with financial support from the Governments of Denmark and the United States of America.

In regions connected by history, kinships, and shared borders, what happens in one State will impact its neighbours. Terrorism, therefore, affects not just individual States but entire regions. South Asia is one of the regions that have greatly suffered the consequences of terrorism. As part of an effort to promote greater regional cooperation to combat terrorism and other forms of serious crime, CTED has helped to organize a series of workshops that have been held throughout the region for the past six years.

In the Maldives, police, prosecutors, and judges from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka attended the three-day workshop, the purpose of which was to explore specific issues identified by the participants that present the greatest opportunity to enhance efforts to combat terrorism.

Representing the Government of the Maldives at the opening session was Secretary of Defence Colonel (retired) Mohamed Nazim.

Head of the CTED Delegation was Chief of Section Elizabeth Joyce, who underlined that capacity-building initiatives such as this workshop “provide an important platform for regional counterparts to share their experiences, lessons learned and good practices, to discuss key challenges, and most importantly – to develop habits of cooperation.”

Over the three days, participants were engaged in numerous interactive discussions, facilitated by resource persons from Australia, Nepal, the UK, and the United States of America, and which included a case study in which the judges, prosecutors and police officers, respectively, had to present and explain their positions at the end of the workshop.

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