OSCE hosts workshop for Central Asian legal experts on international co-operation to combat crime

ALMATY, Kazakhstan, 11 July 2011 – The fourth annual workshop on international co-operation in criminal matters for legal experts in Central Asia, co-hosted by the OSCE in co-operation with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), began in Almaty today.

The three-day meeting will bring together more than 60 practitioners from the five Central Asian States, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. Experts from Australia, the Netherlands, the Russian Federation and the UNODC will participate.

The OSCE Strategic Police Matters Unit, the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities and the OSCE Centre in Astana helped to organize the workshop, which will focus on common issues for all countries in the region, including extradition and mutual legal assistance, combating money laundering, confiscating criminal assets and the exchange of data from criminal records.

The workshop provides participants with the occasion to network and discuss opportunities for international co-operation and mutual legal assistance.

“This workshop builds on an OSCE Ministerial Council decision encouraging the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and will support improving cross border co-operation and fighting organized crime,” said OSCE Senior Police Adviser Knut Dreyer.

The workshop is jointly funded by the United States, Australia and Norway.