SIPA

Practical examples from the Netherlands and Slovenia on how to handle international information exchange and which channel like Interpol or Europol to use in a particular case were some of the modules of the workshop hosted by the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of BiH and attended by members of the State Investigation and Protection Agency.

Organized in scope of the Twinning Project “Assistance to the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of BiH“, the workshop provided a platform to explore how BIH’s model of international information exchange operationally-wise can benefit from the experiences of the Netherlands and Slovenia.

“One of the Twinning Projects’ objectives is to strengthen the Directorates capacities in the international police cooperation which covers the segment of international information exchange”, said Pim Cappelle, Resident Twinning Adviser. “We are therefore sparing no efforts in presenting BiH colleagues with various models of organization efficiently applied across the European Union countries, Interpol, Europol and other associations.”

This time, the panellists were police experts from the Netherlands and Slovenia, Policy Adviser on International Information Exchange Sjaak Bax, one of the liaison officers at Europol Gerrit Jan Heijink, and Head of the International Police Cooperation Sector Dušan Kerin respectively, each with over 30 years of experience in the international information exchange segment.

Touching upon the experiences of Slovenia, where Sector for International Police Cooperation that he leads serves as the main national point of contact, Kerin emphasized: “We adhere to the very simple principle of coordination: to provide your colleague in and outside of country with the required information as fast as possible without interfering with the decision making process.”

Information exchange system of the Dutch law enforcement is organised in a way which provides a direct access to all relevant information from abroad and possibility to respond to a request in the best possible manner. “We work on the principle of decentralized level of information exchange, direct access to the information, intelligence-led police work and we strive for the use of only one system for exchange of intelligence,” said Bax.

During the second half of the workshop participants were doing practical exercises in groups, based on the real international police investigation cases.

What both countries have in common is the benefit from the information exchange at the level of 27 EU member states, EUROPOL, SIRENA to name just a few.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a beneficiary of the information exchange through a number of bilateral agreements, the Interpol, SEPC, SELEC, etc. As the next level in the international cooperation, the efforts are now focused on signing the Operational Agreement with EUROPOL by the end of 2012.
 

* The workshop involved police practitioners from the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of BIH, Border Police of BIH, Brcko District Police, Ministry of Interior of Republika Srpska, Federal Administration of Police as well as Cantonal Ministries of Interior.