Baghdad, 7 November 2018 - On 7 November 2018 the German Ambassador to Iraq, Dr Cyrill Nunn received in the German Embassy UNDP-Iraq Country Office representatives and Iraqi representatives of the Higher Judicial Council, the Ministry of the Interior and the Office of the National Security Advisor to discuss the state of reform of criminal investigations in Iraq. The Iraqi representatives had returned from a study trip to Berlin to observe on site and discuss with German practitioners how criminal investigations are conducted in Germany.

The Iraqi officials are members of the Criminal Justice Working Group who have been working for over a year on reviewing how criminal investigations are conducted by the police in Iraq. To streamline the conduct of criminal investigations and to make them more effective and reliable, the Iraqi working group produced a draft on Standard Operating Procedures for Criminal Investigations.

In Berlin the Iraqi delegation held discussions with German criminal justice experts of the Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, police agents of the Federal Investigation Agency, prosecutors of the Berlin Prosecutor General’s Office, the station commander of a Berlin district police station, senior Berlin state police detectives and administrators of the detention on remand facility in Berlin-Moabit.
Ambassador Dr Cyrill Nunn expressed his hope that the visit to Berlin to review German investigation procedures have provided the Iraqi criminal justice working group “with ideas and the right stimulus to identify appropriate mechanisms to advance the criminal investigative process in Iraq.”
 
Acting UNDP-Iraq Country Director Gerardo Noto added that “UNDP will continue facilitating the working group meetings for the finalization of the procedural guidelines so that they could be adopted by the Government of Iraq, as well as supporting their implementation to strengthen the criminal justice system in Iraq.”  

The development and implementation of unified Standard Operating Procedures for Criminal Investigations is an identified key priority within the Government of Iraq's ongoing Security Sector Reform Programme under the system priority Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement that is supported by UNDP and International Partners.

For additional information, please contact:
Ms. Chamila Hemmathagama, Rule of Law/ Security Sector Reform
 Programme Manager. (m): +964 751 184 3529