Details

Event to celebrate the end of the EU Twinning Light Project “Strengthening the capacities of the authorized bodies for fight against crime”

Published: November 28, 2019

On 22 November 2019, the IRZ successfully concluded the EU Twinning Light Project “Strengthening the capacities of the authorized bodies for fight against crime” with a closing conference held in Skopje. During the course of this project, which was completed in just eight months by the IRZ in partnership with the Ministry of Justice and Public Prosecutor's Office of North Macedonia, all the main objectives in the area of applying special investigation methods were achieved, including the assessment and analysis of the Criminal Procedure Law, the Penal Code and the Law on Confidential Information. At several meetings and round table discussions, the German experts discussed the existing problems with North Macedonian representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Financial Police, the Customs Authority and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and worked on recommendations for changes to the law.

A second component of the project dealt in particular with providing the employees of the beneficiary institutions with the relevant training. To achieve this, two German public prosecutors devised a training programme, which was then applied in ten two-day training sessions by trainers from North Macedonia. With the support of German and Austrian public prosecutors, more than a hundred representatives of North Macedonian public prosecutor’s offices were trained in this way.

In order to get an insight into the practical work involved in applying special investigation methods in Germany, in October a group of North Macedonian investigators travelled to Germany for talks at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Düsseldorf (Specialist Department of Organised Crime and Cconomic Crime), the Local and Regional Courts and the State Office of Criminal Investigation for North Rhine-Westphalia.

The closing conference was opened by:

• Nicola Bertolini, Head of the International Cooperation Department, EU Delegation for North Macedonia,
• Gordana Smakjoska, Public Prosecutor at the Specialist Public Prosecutor’s Office for Fighting Organised Crime and Corruption in North Macedonia and a Project Manager, and
• Norbert Koster, a Judge at the Higher Regional Court of Hamm and a Project Manager.

Afterwards, the main results of the projects were presented once again by the following experts from Germany and North Macedonia, and further light was shed on these results through lectures on financial investigation from the point of view of police and customs authorities.

• Vilma Ruskovska, Public Prosecutor at the Specialist Public Prosecutor’s Office for Fighting Organised Crime and Corruption in North Macedonia;
• Bojan Dukovski, Legal Advisor at the Specialist Public Prosecutor’s Office for Fighting Organised Crime and Corruption in North Macedonia;
• Dr. Stefan Trunk, Senior Public Prosecutor, Head of the Department for Economic Crime and Legal Assistance at the Duisburg Public Prosecutor’s Office;
• Andreas Stüve, Senior Public Prosecutor, Head of the Department for Organised Crime at the Duisburg Public Prosecutor’s Office;
• Detlef Kreutzer, former Head of the Department for Organised Crime, Money Laundering and Cybercrime at the Hamburg Police;
• Iris Rebe-Plößer, German Central Customs Authority, Customs Criminal Investigation Office.

The project tied in with the EU Twinning Project “Building of the Institutional Capacity of the Investigative Centres” in North Macedonia, which was also carried out by the IRZ in partnership with Croatia. This means that the results of the project will be put to further use. The IRZ will also be able to continue its successful partnership with those investigators who have already attended their training sessions. Both of these will contribute towards the success of the project. 

Project description: Strengthening the capacities of the authorized bodies for fight against crime