VILNIUS, Lithuania – INTERPOL’s 37th European Regional Conference ended on Friday with a call for National Central Bureaus (NCBs) to provide the widest possible assistance to locate and arrest the four remaining fugitives wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
The recommendation also called on the INTERPOL General Secretariat to liaise with NCBs and specialised War Crime Units in member countries as part of efforts to apprehend Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, Goran Hadzic and Stojan Zupljanin before the scheduled closure of the Tribunal in December 2008.
Delegates from 48 countries participating in the three-day conference also recommended a series of measures to aimed at protecting children from sexual predators, including:
- the increased use of INTERPOL’s green notices and diffusions to warn other member countries about individuals considered as posing a threat to children
- sharing the information on child sex offenders via INTERPOL tools, including images of child sex abuse and intelligence on perpetrators
- exploring the possibility of sharing immigration and passport control data on serious recidivist child sex offenders posing a significant threat to children in order to monitor their movements when crossing international borders
The possibility of undertaking regional operations to combat child sexual exploitation was also recommended.
Conference participants also approved a series of recommendations to enhance international co-operation against cybercrime, including NCBs in the European Region to allow information exchange among cybercrime units via INTERPOL’s secure global communications system I-24/7 and to encourage law enforcement agencies in their countries to join INTERPOL’s Working Party on IT Crime.
The Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime was also recommended to be considered as a reference resource defining the international legal and procedural standards for fighting cybercrime.
The 38th INTERPOL European Regional Conference will be held in San Marino in 2009.