Home Secretary meeting with INTERPOL Secretary General
Priti Patel welcomed INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock to the Home Office on Wednesday 6 July 2022.
Home Secretary Priti Patel and INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock
The Home Secretary welcomed the Secretary General back to London and emphasised the high priority she attaches to international co-operation in order to enforce the law – and that she was always seeking to ensure that the police and law enforcement agencies have the tools they need to do that.
The Secretary General thanked the Home Secretary for her warm welcome and congratulated her on the leadership she continued to show internationally, in particular at the G7 Interior Ministers’ meeting in London in September 2021 and since. He also wanted to congratulate British police and the National Crime Agency for their work with European partners in recent days on the operation to arrest suspected people traffickers across Europe.
The Home Secretary sought assurances that Russia was not able to abuse INTERPOL systems following its invasion of Ukraine. The Secretary General was adamant that he is now implementing INTERPOL’s strongest monitoring process to ensure that there can be no such abuse of INTERPOL systems for political purposes in contravention of INTERPOL’s Constitution and that action would be taken immediately in the event of any non-compliance being identified. The Home Secretary thanked him for this reassurance.
They went on to discuss a variety of issues, including how partners continue to work together to tackle criminality in such fields as corruption and online child sexual exploitation and abuse. They agreed on the importance of communicating how INTERPOL could support its membership in tackling international criminality and providing reassurance that robust mechanisms were in place to prevent misuse of its systems and therefore build trust.
They also noted the ongoing globalisation of crime, with criminals using new technology for nefarious means just as law enforcement agencies are harnessing new technology to detect criminality and bring perpetrators to justice.
The Home Secretary and Secretary General also looked ahead to INTERPOL’s 100th anniversary in 2023 and agreed that it would be an excellent opportunity to promote the evolution of its work, noting that the UK will then host the annual INTERPOL General Assembly in 2024.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said:
INTERPOL is a critical pillar of global law enforcement. People need to know that their government is doing all it can to keep them safe and the work we do with INTERPOL is an essential element of that.
INTERPOL – as a global police information hub – plays a vital role in working with our police and law enforcement agencies to protect the British public and make our streets safer.
INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock said:
I was pleased to congratulate the Home Secretary on her leadership in promoting co-operation to protect communities and bring criminals to justice and to thank her for her continued support in the implementation of the G7 commitments and INTERPOL’s work to make the world safer, especially in preventing online child sexual abuse.