Afghan police officers participate in OSCE course on fighting drug trafficking

DOMODEDOVO, Russia, 29 November 2007 - Methods to fight drug trafficking were the focus of a three-week long OSCE-organized course for ten Afghan police officers that concluded today.

The OSCE's Strategic Police Matters Unit and the Russian Advanced Police Academy organized the course, which focused on preventing, disclosing and investigating drugs trafficking.

"This course is an important effort that complements other international assistance to Afghanistan," said Kevin Carty, Senior Police Adviser to the OSCE Secretary General.

"Trafficking of heroin is a serious security concern for the OSCE, which is playing an essential role in creating political awareness about the problem and enhancing the capacity to fight it."

The specially designed program, held at the International Drugs-fighting Training Centre at the Russian Advanced Police Academy in Domodedovo outside Moscow, included practical exercises on planning and organizing drug searching operations. It comprised all steps of the process, starting with the police investigation and ending with court proceedings.

The head of the Police Academy, Gen. Maj. Yury Demidov noted that it was the first time that the academy took part in an OSCE project of this kind.

"We hope that fruitful co-operation on this and other similar projects will help improve the skills of Afghan drug-fighting officers, help with the analysis of drug routes and identify effective ways to prevent drug trafficking," he said.

One of the participants, Abdul Quadir, the Head of the Drug-fighting Police's Investigation Unit, said the course had combined theory with practice.

"With great interest, we learned advanced methods to detect drugs and identify drug traffickers, such as the use of dogs, auto-identification systems at border crossing points, Interpol tools and data bases," he said.

The OSCE's Strategic Police Matters Unit has organized training courses for police in the OSCE region in the past years, following guidance in a decision taken by OSCE Foreign Ministers during a meeting in Bucharest in 2001.