Hanoi, March 15, 2019: 20 Vietnamese and Mozambican prosecutors have just completed a training course entitled 'Enhancing the prosecution capacity in handling wildlife-related crimes', co-hosted by Vietnam Supreme People’s Procuracy (SPP), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Hanoi Procuratorate University (March 11-15, 2019). After course, the 11 trained Mozambican prosecutors will play key roles in development and implementation of nation-wide trainings for prosecutors in their home country.
The training was a key activity in the agenda of the delegation of the Attorney General’s Office of Mozambique (PGR), headed by Mr. Albino Vasco Macamo, Deputy Attorney General, in their working visit with SPP and Hanoi Procuratorate University. With a series of in-depth trainings on the legal framework, skills in handling criminal cases, especially those related to wildlife, and sharing experience in preventing and combating money laundering of Vietnam and Mozambique, the course has provided Vietnamese and Mozambican prosecutors with opportunities to improve their knowledge and professional skills for better detection and handling of wildlife crimes which are becoming increasingly sophisticated, organized and transnational.
On this occasion, the Mozambican delegation also met with SPP’s leaders and different functional departments to exchange information and update each other of Vietnam and Mozambique’s regulations on mutual legal assistance; proposing ways to enhance partnership and effectiveness in collaboration among Vietnam and Mozambique’s judiciary agencies.
Mr. Albino Vasco Macamo, Deputy Attorney General, head of the Mozambican delegation, said, “We highly appreciate the relationship between the two countries, as well as the cooperation based on a solid legal basis of the two judicial bodies that are the Supreme People's Procuracy of Vietnam and the General Attorney's Office of Mozambique. Learning opportunities like this will not only help foster prosecution capacity for judiciary officers, in order to increase effectiveness in law enforcement in and between the two countries, but also help open doors for deeper and more sustainable cooperation between two institutions. We have selected participants of this working trip carefully in order that after the training, they will play active roles in professional exchanges and mutal legal assistance between the two countries.”
Mr. Nguyen Duc Hanh, Vice Rector of Hanoi Procuratorate University, said, “We are facing increasingly sophisticated, organized transnational crimes, including wildlife-related ones. This requires law enforcement forces to constantly improve their capacity and enhance information exchange to ensure that they do not miss any violations and solve roots of syndicates. Vietnam and Mozambique are targeted countries of wildlife-related offenders whose strategies are becoming more and more sophisticated. In this context, we are honored to co-organize this capacity building program for Vietnamese and Mozambican prosecutors, joining hands to realize bilateral efforts in counter wildlife trafficking.”
Mr. Le Tien, Head of Department of International Cooperation and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, SPP, emphasized that ‘SPP looks forward to expanding bilateral and multilateral judiciary cooperations in fighting crimes, particulary transnational ones. Vietnam has pretty complete legal framework on mutual legal assistance and SPP is willing to share experiences, enhance information exchange with enforcement authorities of foreign countries, especially those having signed mutual legal assistance tratety with Vietnam like Mozambique, to ensure strict and thorough handling of crimes in general and wildlife crimes in particular.'
In this trip, the Mozambican delegation also visited and worked with Vietnam Insitute of Forensic Sciences, Ministry of Public Security, to study Vietnam's criminal techniques in handling serious cases, and visited Cuc Phuong National Park to learn about species conservation education.
Being the co-host of this working visit of the Mozambican delegation, WCS is committed to continuing our support with capacity building for executive and judicial agencies of Vietnam and Mozambique. At the same time, we will promote concrete cooperative actions between the two countries towards better law enforecment to reduce, prevent and dismantle wildlife-related criminal networks, especially those involving Vietnamese and Mozambican citizens in transnational illegal trade on rhino horn and elephant ivory.
This significant working visit was carried out with the support of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), United States Department of State.
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