Albanian lawyers, officers training in US

TIRANA, June 1 – Fifteen Albanian prosecutors and judicial police officers were in the United States on a study tour, which began in Washington, DC, focused on increasing the skills of prosecutors and judicial police officers in the investigation and prosecution of complex cases; exposing the participants to the U.S. judicial system; and visiting U.S. cities confronting challenges similar to those facing Albanians.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Cindy Eldridge of Jackson, a guide for the group, has been living and working in Albania for the past year with a division of the Department of Justice called Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training Program.
“I work as an embedded advisor with a task force called the Joint Investigative Unit to Fight Economic Crime and Corruption (JIU), which is composed of prosecutors, investigators, police officers, and liaisons from other agencies, all working together to prosecute high and lower level public officials for corruption,” Eldridge said.
The JIU was formed in May 2007 and began formal operations in September 2007. Since that time, it has been enormously successful in bringing prosecutions against high and low-level government officials in Albania engaged in public corruption.