In June 2019, with financial support from the Government of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the IIJ implemented a National Workshop on Investigating and Prosecuting Terrorism Cases within a Rule of Law Framework in Tunis.
In collaboration with the Australian High Commission, Malta (with Non-Resident Accreditation to Tunisia), and Tunisia’s Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior, and Justice, the IIJ delivered an interactive and interagency-focused workshop on challenges and good practices in investigating and prosecuting terrorism cases in the context of international good practices and Tunisia’s Counter Terrorism Law of 2015. The workshop brought together ten representatives from Tunisia’s Ministry of Interior, specifically law enforcement and investigators from the National Counter Terrorism Units within both the National Guard and the Judicial Police, and ten representatives from the Ministry of Justice, specifically magistrates and investigative judges from the specialised Counter Terrorism Judicial Pole.
The workshop addressed two priorities identified in collaboration with the IIJ’s Tunisian partners: a) the handling and securing of evidence, including digital data, in terrorism cases within a rule of law framework; and b) establishing efficient inter-agency and international cooperation mechanisms for effective investigations and prosecutions. Drawing on the international good practices in the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s (GCTF) Rabat Memorandum on Good Practices for Effective Counterterrorism Practice in the Criminal Justice Sector, the Recommendations for Using and Protecting Intelligence Information in Rule of Law-Based, Criminal Justice Sector-Led Investigations and Prosecutions (elucidating Good Practice 6 of the Rabat Memorandum), the Abuja Recommendations on the Collection, Use and Sharing of Evidence for Purposes of Criminal Prosecution of Terrorist Suspects, and the IIJ Good Practices for Central Authorities, as well as contributions from expert practitioners from the Australian Federal Police, France’s CIVIPOL, CT MENA and UNODC, the workshop robustly addressed these national priorities through substantive lectures, plenary discussions, and interactive and practical exercises.
For more information on this workshop or the IIJ Investigations Initiative, please contact Senior Investigations Adviser Philip Tucker.