“For the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Bolivia, the holding of these events is very important. We have had drug trafficking incidents whose operational arms were in other countries or continents,” stated Juan Lanchipa, Minister of the Public Ministry of Bolivia, who assured that in order to carry out the investigations, with efficient results, “we have had to turn to our peers from those countries, therein arises the need to have these JITs.”
The forum took place in the context of the project called Support in the Constitution, Development, Conclusion and Evaluation of JITs”, chaired by the Public Ministry of Bolivia.
Lanchipa thanked the support of the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP), whose help he considered essential in obtaining as a final product a Protocol for the Formation of JITs, adjusted to the criminal procedural regulations of Bolivia.
“It is necessary to have a Specialized Protocol to carry out these joint investigations, because transnational crime requires it of us,” insisted Lanchipa, who considered that, if efforts are combined between the Public Ministry and similar structures from other nations, better results can be achieved in investigations into drug trafficking and other transnational crimes such as human trafficking.
The head of the FIIAPP Bolivia Project Team, Margarita de la Barga Sánchez, also spoke on the opening day of the meeting. “We believe that the JITs are an advanced tool of international legal cooperation that is absolutely essential to seriously, deeply and effectively deal with the fight against transnational crime”, the expert said.
The academic activity of the forum included presentations by representatives of the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Madrid, the Special Anti-Drug Office of Spain and the Civil Guard and the Human Trafficking Section of the Central Operational Unit of the Judicial Police of the Civil Guard of Spain.
The prosecutor of the Specialized Directorate Against Violations of the Nation’s Human Rights, Andrés Rincón, intervened on behalf of Colombia; and the representative of the Directorate of Regional and International Cooperation of the Attorney General’s Office, Victoria Stuart, did so for Argentina.
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