As a part of its ongoing project on strengthening the legal regime against terrorism for Egypt, that is generously funded by Japan, and in close cooperation with the Egyptian counterparts, the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC/TPB) conducted a national workshop on the prevention of terrorist financing, its investigation and prosecution. The workshop was held in Cairo, Egypt, from 17 to 19 June 2014. The total number of participants and experts amounted to 47. Egyptian officials from the Ministries of Justice, Defense, Foreign Affairs and law enforcement (police and intelligence) joined a multicultural bench of international and national experts in very active discussions. The experts were selected to cover multiple legal backgrounds and cultural diversity and included distinguished experts from Egypt, Italy, Lebanon, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
During the three-day workshop, national, regional and international approaches and main challenges in investigating and prosecuting terrorist financing were presented to the participants. A key element of the workshop was the presentation of experiences from Arabic countries (Lebanon and Tunisia) and other countries with a civil law system (Italy) compared with those from a common law system (the United Kingdom and the United States of America), and their compliance with the international standards. Experts and participants discussed several related judicial cases from Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Due process and human rights issues as well as good practices in investigating and prosecuting the financing of terrorism were also discussed.
Open discussions took place in every session of the workshop and focused on how mechanisms, experiences and practices highlighted by experts could be useful for Egypt.