POLICING ACROSS BORDERS PROJECT

1 POLICING ACROSS BORDERS PROJECT Third Workshop STRENGTHENING COOPERATION IN THE FIGHT AGAINST DRUG TRAFFICKING: LEGISLATION, INSTITUTIONS, AND PROPOSALS Bio Sketches Ms. Ela Banaj is a National Project Officer, in Albania, of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) since April 1998. Ms. Banaj holds a degree in English Language and Literature, a degree in law from the University of Tirana and a MA Degree. Her Master s thesis was on Drug-related Penal Offences in the Albanian Criminal Law and in the Criminal Procedure Law A Comparative Study of the EU Countries Legislation and the Albanian Legislation. Since 1992 she has served with various international organizations in Albania, including the European Commission, USAID (United States International Agency for Development) and DANIDA (Danish International Development Agency. She is the author and co-author of various publications and documentaries as well as team member involved in the preparation of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) s Human Development Reports and Common Country Assessment/Millennium Developmental Goals (CCA/MDG), the Albanian Anti Drug, AHT, Youth, and HIV/AIDS Strategies. Mr. Arjan Muça is the Director of the Anti Organized Crime Department at the General Directorate of the Albanian State Police since 2007. Mr. Muça holds a degree in history and geography from the University of Tirana and a degree from the Academy of Public Order Arben Zylyftari. He has been working with the Albanian State Police since 1992 where he exercised various functions within the homicide crime, criminal police and organized crime departments. Mr. Muça has also been Head of the Central Service for the Fight against Drugs. Mr. Sokol Selfollari is the Head of the Central Service for the Fight against Drugs at the General Directorate of the Albanian State Police. He is a graduated police officer. His working experience with the Albanian State Police started in 1992, and most of his professional experience is linked to the anti-drug unit, serving as its chief for several years. Ms. Irma Deljkić is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Criminal Justice Sciences of the University of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she teaches Criminal Investigation and Drug Policy. She is currently completing her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Sarajevo. Ramiz Huremagić is currently an Organised Crime Expert Advisor at the Prosecutor s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mr. Huremagić graduated from the Faculty of Criminal Sciences of the University of Sarajevo and obtained a M.Sc. degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Wales in Cardiff in 2002. In the past he was Chief of Operations of the Prosecutor s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina Special Department for Organized Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption; Support Director to the Prosecutor s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Consultant for Save the Children, Prosecutor s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, DFID and Council of Europe projects. He also used to be engaged as an auditor at the Office of the Special Auditor for Bosnia and Herzegovina, intelligence analyst at the Customs Administration of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and National Officer for

2 Security Operations at the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also worked as the Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Criminal Sciences of the University of Sarajevo on the subjects of Organization and Functioning of the Police and Theories and Systems of Security. He has published and presented numerous scientific and expert works. He is a member of the Association of Graduated Criminalists of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mr. Dimitar Tsvetanov Hadzhiyski is currently a public prosecutor at the Public Prosecutor s Office of Bulgaria, Sofia Regional Prosecutor s Office. Prior to that, Mr. Hadzhiyski has worked as junior public prosecutor at Sofia City Prosecutor s Office and intern in law at Sofia s District Court. Mr. Hadzhiyski holds a Master s in Law, Valedictorian, from Sofia University, St. Kliment Ochridski. He has passed the initial training for magistrates at the National Institute of Justice with additional training in Administration of Justice in The Hague. Mr. Hadzhiyski has been a member of the European Law Students' Association, and is currently a member of The Association of Prosecutors in Bulgaria, which is a member of the International Association of Prosecutors. Mr. Hadzhiyski is a contact point in the National Prosecutor s Network of Bulgaria which is directly linked to the European Judicial Network in Criminal Matters. He has presented and participated in several international conferences and seminars. Ms. Doroteya Kehayova has been a Judge in the Sofia Regional Court since May 2006. Now she works in the Criminal Department of the Sofia Regional Court. She also worked as an ssistant judge in the Criminal Department of the Supreme Court of Cassation of the Republic of Bulgaria. Before becoming a magistrate, Ms. Kehayova has worked in the NGO sector and as an intern legislative assistant to the Parliamentary Internship Program of the Bulgarian National Assembly. As an intern legislative assistant she has assisted different Committees of the Bulgarian National Assembly in the preparation of comparative legal researches and analysis in the field of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law, and of conclusions to legislative amendments. Ms. Rossitsa Stoyanova is currently a prosecutor at the District Prosecutor's Office in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. Prior to that, Ms Stoyanova had worked as a Deputy Regional Prosecutor in Stara Zagora. She has specialized in drug cases and matters related to European Legal Cooperation in criminal matters. Ms. Stoyanova is a graduate of the Law Department of the University of Sofia. She has additional training in European Union Law and in Administration of Justice. Mr. Vasileios L. Konstantopoulos, Police Major General (retired), is working in the Centre for Security Studies (KE.ME.A) as an expert on crime policy and European programs. Mr. Konstantopoulos obtained a 1 st Honors degree from the Hellenic Gendarmerie Officer s School. He holds a law degree and a post graduate degree in criminology. He is certified by Europol as a strategic crime analyst. He acquired an extensive experience within the Hellenic Police, serving at the Financial and Economic Crimes Unit, the Anti-Drugs and Juvenile Delinquency Unit, the International Police Cooperation Division, Police Schools and local Police Stations. He taught drug matters as a lecturer at the National Security School of the Hellenic Police. He worked in the Project Team of Europol, in Strasbourg/France and in the Europol Drugs Unit, in The Hague/The Netherlands, as a Greek Liaison Officer. He was for years a member of the Horizontal Group on Drugs in Brussels.

3 Mr. Georgios Kastanis is a police major currently serving as the Head of Section of Internal Affairs at the Anti-drugs Sub-Division of the Attiki Police Security Directorate of Greece. Mr. Kastanis holds a degree from the Hellenic Police Officer s School, the Thessaloniki University of Law and the Technical Educational Institution/ Naval Engineering Department. He has represented Greece abroad in numerous conferences and meetings of International and European Organizations. In addition, he teaches at the Hellenic Police Officer s School on issues related to drugs since 2001 and is also a trainer in CEPOL Seminars on drug matters. Mr. Jack Stanton is an addiction counselor and behavior psychologist. For the last twelve years Mr. Stanton has been the scientist responsible for the Prevention Center Athina Pronaia of the Municipality of Athens in cooperation with the Hellenic Organization Against Drugs (O.KA.NA). This organization promotes health education in schools and the community, and provides counseling. Mr. Stanton is the supervisor of the Outreach Program for drug users in the Center of Athens. He is also the coordinator of the training programs for professionals in the field of drug addiction. He has had an extensive cooperation with the Hellenic Center of Intercultural Psychiatry in the area of minority groups. Prof. Pavel Abraham is the President of the Romanian Anti-drug National Agency and the Romanian National Drug Coordinator throughout 2003-2008. A police officer and Doctor of Laws, Prof. Abraham was promoted to Chief of the Romanian Police and became secretary of state in the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Affairs in Romania. In addition, he is a professor in the University of Bucharest, where he heads the department of Social Work and Probation, and is the Coordinator of a PhD course and the initiator of the first master courses in the field of drug demand reduction in Romania. He is a representative of Romania and legal correspondent in several European organizations instrumental in the field of drugs. He is a national expert in the field of law, public order and safety, drugs, and social work. Mr. Hans Maasdam is a Chief Inspector of the Dutch National Police (KLPD). Mr. Maasdam has been a police liaison officer in Romania since his July 2004 appointment by the Dutch National Police. He is responsible for the international co-operation and information exchange in combating organized crime between the Netherlands, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Republic of Moldova. Mr. Maasdam started in 1979 his career as a police officer in The Hague and has held several positions including uniform squad, anti-riot squad, detective, senior detective, and detective-sergeant. He was also an investigator for the United Nations after the genocide in Rwanda and worked as a liaison officer for the Dutch police in Algeria and Mali in a kidnapping case. In 2002 he joined the National Police and became a team leader within the international co-operation department. Mr. Taner Aydin is the Deputy Director of the Central Counter Narcotic Division of Antismuggling Department in the Turkish National Police. Mr. Aydin is a graduate from the Police Academy in Ankara/Turkey. In 2007 he obtained a Master Degree in Gazi University (Ankara, Turkey). The title of his thesis was Narco-Terrorism in Turkey and the role of the PKK KONGRAGEL Terror Organization. He has participated in UN missions in Bosnia Herzegovina (2000-2001) and in Sierra Leone (2003-2004). In addition, Mr. Aydin has attended numerous operational meetings, conferences, and workshops on International illicit trafficking.

4 Dr. Cüneyt Gürer is currently working as the Head of Turkish Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (TUBİM), an institution which coordinates the government agencies on drug related issues, and collects/analyzes data to support drug policy making process. Dr. Gürer graduated from Kent State University, Department of Political Science Program on International Relations and Comparative Justice Policies with a PhD degree in 2007. Dr. Süleyman Hancerli is a Superintendent in the Turkish National Police, TNP. Dr. Hancerli has been in the agency for 15 years. He worked as an instructor in the Turkish National Police Academy between 1994 and 2000. He has been working as the deputy director of the Turkish International Academy against Drugs and Organized Crime (TADOC), which was established by the TNP in cooperation with the office of the United Nations International Drug Control Program, UNDCP, in Ankara in 2000. He has a Bachelor s degree from the Police Academy in Turkey, a Master s degree in the Criminal Justice Department, and doctoral degree in the Department of Information Science at the University of North Texas in the US. He shared his information, knowledge, and experience about his policing experience with more than 20 Nations law enforcement professionals throughout his teaching experience at Turkish National Police Academy, TADOC, and other police agencies abroad. Dr. Hancerli is specifically interested in researching terrorism, organized crimes, drugs, hostage/crisis management, and democratic policing. Mr. Brian Taylor is a former senior police officer in the United Kingdom, who was appointed in 2000 as the Chief of the Supply Reduction and Law Enforcement Section of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) based in Vienna, Austria. In 2003, following the merger of the UNDCP and the UN Centre for International Crime Prevention (CICP) to become the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Mr. Taylor was appointed Chief of the Anti-Trafficking Section. He remained in that post until retiring from UNODC in April 2008. He has wide experience of international law enforcement issues and now acts as an independent consultant. Dr. Ric Curtis is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He has more than twenty-five years of experience conducting ethnographic research in New York City neighborhoods. At the Vera Institute of Justice in the late 1980s, he was co-author of a study that examined the effectiveness of New York City s Tactical Narcotics Team. During the 1990s, while at the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. (NDRI), he participated in several large studies of injecting drug users and HIV risk networks. At John Jay College, he was the Director of the Heroin in the 21st Century project, a five-year ethnographic study of heroin users and distributors in New York City funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). He was also the Principal Investigator of the Lower East Side Trafficking project, a two-year study funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which examined the developmental trajectories and interactions between markets for different illegal drugs. He is currently working on three projects, including a study for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to examine drug injector behaviors in Long Island and New York City and a study of drug dealing and violence in Rochester, New York. Dr. Curtis serves on the Boards of Directors of several local social service organizations, including Family Services Network, The After Hours Project in Brooklyn, and CitiWide Harm Reduction in the Bronx.

Prof. Barry Spunt, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and past Chair in the Department of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is also on the doctoral faculty in Criminal Justice at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. He was born and raised in Boston and moved to the New York area in 1980. Dr. Spunt has been involved in substance misuse research for over 25 years. His early work focused on methadone treatment. Much of his work focuses on the relationship between drugs and violence. Most recently he completed a fiveyear ethnographic study of the heroin scene in New York City. He has also been funded to study the relationship between substance misuse and gambling, and substance misuse among the disabled. Currently he is working on his first book, a social history of heroin in New York City. 5