Government Seeks Mutual Assistance Treaty with UK

The Government is moving with urgency to put in place a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the United Kingdom (UK).

Minister of National Security, Dr. Peter Phillips who made the disclosure said: “We are going to be pursuing those discussions immediately, but I should point out that there is no country to whom we have closer cooperation and anti-crime efforts than we do with the United Kingdom”.

Minister Phillips was speaking at a press conference today at the Hilton Kingston Hotel to outline the outcome of yesterday’s meeting between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Ministerial Subcommittee for Resource Mobilization for Crime and Security and the UK Senior Level Team on Security Cooperation.

He said that the Treaty was of relevance to Jamaica as, “we see this Treaty not so much as giving authority to cooperate but really to put a framework around existing framework to enable something to be done more easily, such as the sharing of assets that are forfeited in either country, so that we would both benefit”.

Dr. Phillips observed that criminal activities in “today’s world” were international in scope, and as such there was need for cooperation between countries to counteract these efforts.

Meanwhile, Bill Rammell, Minister at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office with responsibility for the UK’s relations with the Caribbean said that the meeting with the CARICOM representatives was a success.

He said that the discussions were not intended to be a “talking shop, not to be lots of wordy papers that are not producing results but to actually get down to practical steps and practical improvement”.