Update 30 April 2020: No one could have expected, when I prepared my paper on the future of Mutual Legal Assistance for the Heads of Central Authorities in the Commonwealth, the devastation of the global Covid-19 crisis. As we now increase our use of virtual meetings through Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting and more – we…

After a long year of travel my last mission of 2019 is complete! I have been in Vienna for the Central Asia e-evidence training with UNODC, CTED and OSCE. This is the last of our phase 1 trainings – we are proud to say that more than 250 practitioners from 80 different countries have now…

It was a privilege to be at the Siracusa International Institute for the delivery of practical training on international judicial cooperation for the EuroMed Justice Project. I was invited to present to Judges and Prosecutors from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Palestine on Joint Investigation Teams (JIT), Anti-Money Laundering and accessing E-Evidence…

Ama waa la muuqdaa, ama waa la maqnaada Either be visible or be absent We flew to Mogadishu International Airport (MIA) three weeks after Somalia suffered its worst terrorist attack on 14 October when a large truck bomb exploded in central Mogadishu killing at least 358 people. Somalia was once again back in the global…

It has been a pleasure to do my first training for the Council of Europe CyberSouth Team as part of the GLACY+ project. Over two days I have facilitated practical exercises to advance the Budapest Convention 24/7 Network in Morocco. Although I have now completed e-evidence training for practitioners from more than 80 jurisdictions over…

Cameroon and Luxembourg are not countries you would usually put in the same sentence – for the last week I have been in both – sharing experience and training on requesting e-evidence from service providers. Yaoundé is the green and vibrant capital of Cameroon. Poverty is clear to see as children swim in the polluted…

Attending the Commonwealth Law Ministers meeting in Sri Lanka to present on implementation of the Commonwealth Cyber Declaration

To reach out to even more practitioners around the world – I have been part of a team of experts delivering online e-evidence training for UNODC. This has been no mean feat -with more than forty participants from Vanuatu to Germany! Topics ranged from how to meet probable cause in the United States for content,…

A recent EU survey highlighted that e-Evidence is relevant in 85% of criminal investigations and in more than half of those investigations, a request for e-Evidence from a service provider located in another country is necessary. Relying solely on mutual legal assistance for e-Evidence does not match fast-paced communications between organised crime groups and terrorist…

The CLOUD Act Agreement signed between the U.S. and U.K. on 3 October 2019 means that the U.S. will be able to serve U.K. Internet and Online Service Providers directly with U.S. legal process requiring production of electronic evidence. Undoubtedly, direct service of legal orders obtained in the U.K. on U.S. service providers, such as…

Drafting an updated model law on electronic evidence for the Commonwealth member states

I never thought I would present on my back! Meeting the energetic ‘Judge’ – the latest expert to join our panel of e-Evidence gurus for UNODC – was quite the spectacle! Using his vast experience of Pakistan and the region we were entertained with his ‘can do’ attitude. This infectious approach will no doubt have…

The Republic of Maldives is the lowest country in the world, with its highest point only at 5.1 metres – the height of two and a half men standing on each other’s shoulders! What the Maldives may lack in height, it more than makes up for with its natural beauty, consisting of 1,192 coral islands….

The yellow in the Colombian flag represents gold, the blue the Pacific and Caribbean coasts and red for the blood spilt for the country. Colombia’s past has been one fraught with turbulence and the agreement with FARC in 2017 brought hope for peace. This peace was shattered when the Santander police academy in Bogotá was…

“The world is a fine place and worth fighting for!”  Wrote Ernest Hemingway over eighty years ago. Now the fight is a different one – with climate change, plastic waste, destruction of native forests and deaths from pollution. The damage we all do to our world is at a tipping point! For the last week…

T.S. Eliot once said that, “The journey not the arrival matters.” I couldn’t disagree more! After 25,000 miles travelled in ten days it was an absolute pleasure to arrive and see my hotel bed! First stop was my old home of Barbados for the Workshop of Commonwealth Network of Contact Persons on advancing cybercrime investigations….

For the last three days I have been in Johannesburg for the UNODC/CTED/IAP/ComSec Meeting of Regional Cybercrime Focal Points and Central Authorities. This was an opportunity to present the UN/IAP Practical Guide for Requesting E-Evidence Across Borders and apply the tools in a real-time practical exercise. This participant led exercise tested the use of the…

For the last two weeks I have been part of a team assessing the training needs of the Special Tribunals in Dhaka adjudicating terrorism, money laundering, corruption and cybercrime matters. With a population of 160 million, Bangladesh has the eighth largest population in the world. Dhaka alone has a population of 9 million – the…

The United Kingdom will rely more on Interpol Alerts if they leave the European Union without a deal, which a 2019 Study commissioned by the European Parliament found to be lacking in legal safeguards and accountability mechanisms. Interpol, the international police organization, is a necessary tool for trans-border police cooperation for terrorism and organized crime…

As part of the UNODC, UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate and the International Association of Prosecutors, ‘Accessing Electronic Evidence Across Borders Project’, I attended Malaysia for a training workshop. Along with presentations from representatives from Facebook and Uber, I lectured on the CLOUD Act, the proposed EU Rules on E-Evidence and application of model forms for…

After 20 days on the road, through six countries and with almost 20,000 miles covered, it was a joy to end my journey in Dresden – the “Florence of the Elbe” From the opulent Baroque style Zwinger, dubbed one of the greatest “complete works of art” ever created, to the Frauenkirche church, all but destroyed…

For the last week I have been working with the DPP of Ghana, Chief State Attorneys, Principal State Attorneys and Judicial Police Officers, to draft a Strategy to Professionalize Police Prosecutors. Being “strategic” is a word often used – but how is a successful strategy planned? Richard Rumelt – one of the leading thinkers on…

“Qui n’avance pas, recule!” The Third CrimEx for EuroMed Justice IV was hosted by the French Ministry of Justice in Paris on 24-26 October. The purpose of the CrimEx was to hear presentations on the legal and gap analyses of laws, procedures and challenges to international cooperation in the Southern Partner Countries (SPCs) of Algeria,…

After completing my twentieth mission to the Greater Horn of Africa for the EU Law Enforcement Project – I have learnt it can be the smallest things that have the greatest impact. Communication and trust are vital in all walks of life and especially in international judicial cooperation. You can be the best lawyer –…

The EU Regional Law Enforcement Project in the Greater Horn of Africa and Yemen returned to Uganda for the third round of international co-operation workshops – this time on extradition. In 2010, 74 people were killed and 71 others injured, whilst they watched the World Cup final in Kampala, in a terrorist attack by Al-Shabaab….

Illegal Mining Ghana is a country with a bountiful supply of minerals – the mining industry of Ghana accounted for 5.7% of the country’s GDP and generated an annual revenue of US$35 billion in 2014. This extraction of minerals comes with a significant environmental impact – predominantly from illegal small-scale miners – known as ‘galamseys’….

Ahead of Romania taking the Presidency of the European Union in January 2019 we opened iJust Europe in Bucharest. We are excited to continue the collaboration with our European partners and extending our geographical reach.

For the last three days I have co-chaired a working group of Romanian, German, Belgian and Italian Prosecutors as part of a project to strengthen the institutional capacity of the Romanian DIICOT (Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism). The focus has been judicial cooperation in the EU and the development of a practical Handbook…

With my Ethiopian friends in Uganda – በኡጋንዳ ከሚኖሩ ኢትዮጵያዊ ወዳጆቼ ጋር I have spent the last week in Uganda, working with twenty experts from the Greater Horn of Africa, to develop their international judicial cooperation skills. As well as preparing a roadmap for the future of the Greater Horn of Africa International Judicial Cooperation…

It was great to be back in San Francisco to meet Service Providers as part of the UN CTED/ UNODC and International Association of Prosecutors Global e-Evidence Project. The San Francisco outreach event provided a platform for the project to showcase how we can assist startups to respond to overseas requests for preservation, voluntary disclosure…

The First EuroMed Conference for Digital Evidence was hosted in Lisbon, Portugal 23-25 April 2018. The meeting was timely with the passing into law of the U.S. Cloud Act and the EU Commission proposals for European Production and Preservation Orders. Since the Arab Spring use of social media platforms has significantly increased in the Southern…

This week I returned to Barbados to facilitate a Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) Seminar, funded by the U.S. Department of State. As criminally acquired assets can be located in a number of different States, MLA is an essential process to speedily freeze property to prevent dissipation and to enforce confiscation or civil recovery orders. Without…

I was honoured to chair an EU funded Expert Working Group (EWG) to enhance extradition in the Greater Horn of Africa. The EWG, hosted in the stunning surrounds of the International Peace Support Training Centre, discussed the impact of procedural errors, how to manage urgent requests and sustainable reform to meet these and other challenges…

The last EU Mutual Legal Assistance workshop of the year has produced a Fiches for Djibouti on evidence collection and use of Special Investigation Techniques for Requesting States. Over a week, key Djiboutian stakeholders from the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gendarmerie, Investigative Judges and Prosecutors – plus an expert from the French…

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. Over the last month, as part of the Regional EU Law Enforcement Project, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia have produced their own equivalent of the Fiches Belges The Fiches summarise the relevant law and procedure for gathering evidence and…

Ghana plans to be the first developed African nation as part of its 2020 vision. This plan will need to address the claims that Ghana has lost up to 50 billion cedis (approx $11bn USD) in corruption. In the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2016 Ghana ranked 70 out of 176 countries with a score of 43 (0=highly…

“When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion“ Although al-Shabaab remains the main terrorist threat in Ethiopia, the impact of global terrorism was experienced, when a video was released by ISIS in April 2015, showing the beheading of 28 Ethiopians in Libya. The Ethiopian Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP), promulgated in 2009 to criminalise acts of…

Sudan was the third leg of the EU regional training to advance international cooperation in counter-terrorism investigations, prosecutions and trials in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHOA). Researching Sudanese law for the training, I read section 27(3) of the Criminal Law Act 1991: “Death sentence with crucifixion shall not be passed except for armed robbery”…

The Foreign Terrorist Fighters Workshop for Iraq brought experts from around the world to present on the collection of intelligence and evidence. A major challenge discussed was the use of end-to-end encryption. Following the appalling terrorist attacks in Westminster, Manchester and London Bridge the use of encrypted devices and messaging apps by terrorists has again been highlighted. Terrorist…

The conflict in Yemen has created a human tragedy in devastating proportions – since the start of the conflict over two years ago, there are 2 million people displaced across the country, with a further 1 million having returned to their homes, but still requiring humanitarian assistance (source: UNHCR) Yemen has been torn apart by…

Driving past the old St George’s Hotel, where 1800kg of TNT killed Rafic Hariri and 22 other innocent citizens, I was reminded about the reality of terrorist atrocities. More than 12 years after the attack, the Hotel remains in a dilapidated condition, as a dispute over its future continues. A large sign imploring authorities not…