POLICE-RELATED ACTIVITIES OF FIELD OPERATIONS SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE Hate Crime On 12 May, the Mission, together with the Judicial Academy, conducted hate crime training for representatives from the judiciary and law enforcement. The course focused on the concept of hate crimes in the international framework, the national legal framework and case law, and Serbia’s contribution to the annual ODIHR hate crime report. Approximately twenty participants attended the training. This activity was part of the Mission’s wider efforts to support state institutions and civil society in addressing hate crimes in Serbia. Activities Related to Threats Posed by Criminal Activity Organized Crime On 7 and 9 March, the Mission, together with the University of Milan and the Serbian Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, organized a seminar on “Studying and Investigating Transnational Organized Crime” at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade. During the three-day event, panellists from Italy and Serbia delivered presentations and led discussions on organized crime from academic, criminal-investigation, journalistic and civil society perspectives. A total of 50 participants included university students, as well as representatives from civil society, embassies and international organizations. As a follow up, on 29 and 30 September, the Mission organized a meeting in Sarajevo, gathering some 10 academic researchers on organized crime from Serbia, Italy, Albania and BiH. The goal of the meeting was to explore the possibility of creating a basis for establishing an academic network of researchers in the Balkans who investigate the organized crime phenomenon from a socio-criminological academic perspective. This initiative was a part of the overall Mission’s efforts to enhance an informed approach to combating transnational, organized and serious crime On 4 May, the Mission facilitated the participation of three representatives from the Service for Combating Organized Crime of the Serbian Police in a trilateral meeting in Budapest between police services from Hungary, Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on illegal migration. The representatives of the three police services discussed the overall situation in relation to irregular migration along the Western Balkan route and focused on organized crime groups that smuggle migrants. The meeting, which was a follow-up to one held in Skopje in November 2015, was the first of three trilateral meetings on illegal migration planned for 2016. The other two meetings took place on 22 September in Belgrade and 7 December in Skopje, where representatives from the three countries exchanged operational data concerning migration-related crimes, with a focus on migrant smuggling. This initiative contributed to the Mission’s overall efforts to intensify regional and international police co-operation and address potential threats which originate from the illegal smuggling of migrants by organized crime groups. From 23 to 30 June, the Mission, together with the MoI, organized two two-day trainings for 61 members from the Ministry’s permanent team for firearms trafficking. The trainings provided newly appointed team members with knowledge and skills on firearms identification, investigation techniques, special evidentiary actions including controlled delivery, storage of confiscated firearms, and international co-operation in firearm trafficking investigations. It also presented new relevant legislation including the Law on Firearms and Ammunition and the Criminal Procedure Code. This activity was part of the Mission’s wider efforts to enhance police capacity to combat trans-national, organized and serious crime. On 7 and 8 November, the Mission, together with the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (POOC), organized the second meeting of prosecutors of organized crime and terrorism. Recalling the “Declaration of intent”3 signed at the previous meeting held in May, the prosecutors gathered with the aim to discuss how to intensify co-operation in cases of organized crime and terrorism. Approximately 30 participants from ten European countries, primarily from the Western Balkans4 explored ways to intensify co-operation in cases of organized crime and terrorism. This activity was part of the Mission’s wider efforts to enhance the capacities of the POOC to combat organized crime in a more efficient and effective manner. On 6 and 8 December, the Mission, together with the Embassy of the United Kingdom (UK) to Serbia and the UK National Crime Agency, organized a training course for the MoI’s team tasked with responding to cases of kidnapping. Two experts from the UK National Crime Agency delivered training to ten Serbian police officers, introducing them to methods of adequate and efficient response to such cases. The purpose of this training was to create a pool of police officers capable of training uniformed police officers working in regional police districts across Serbia. This activity was part of the Mission’s wider efforts to strengthen police capacities to combat serious and organized crime. 3 The first gathering of this group of prosecutors took place at the international conference “Managing complex data in organized crime and corruption cases”, which the Mission organized in Belgrade on 26 and 27 May this year, where the prosecutors signed the “Declaration of intent”. 4 Participants comprised representatives from Albania, BiH (including a prosecutor from Republika Srpska), Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. 85