There are other less extreme ways to protect people that offer information to police, such as 24/7 close protection (where a ‘handler’ accompanies and guards a witness), CCTV, or restraining orders.
Information offered by former criminals can be crucial in helping police investigators solve crimes, but ‘informants’ may need protection after divulging this information. The world of serious crime is an ugly one, and hard to escape from. In most cases, we are talking about serious organised crime, and most “witnesses” are former criminals who want to change their ways. But really it refers to anybody in possession of information about a crime, and who as a result of holding that information faces a threat to their safety. The word “witness” can be a little misleading because we imagine a witness as somebody who witnesses a crime. Witness protection is a fairly radical criminal-investigation measure used by law-enforcement officers, and usually only used as a last resort. What exactly is witness protection, and why do witnesses need to be protected?įirst of all, it is important to put this into proper context. EUAM Head of Operations Udo Moeller elaborates here on the concept of witness protection.
EUAM is advocating for an independent witness protection unit in Ukraine, and this was one of the issues discussed at the seminar, where an Austrian witness-protection expert addressed officers from Ukraine’s law-enforcement partners. The European Union Advisory Mission (EUAM) Ukraine is this week carrying out a first seminar on witness protection, a tool that law-enforcement agencies use to fight serious forms of crime, organised crime and terrorism.
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