UNOCT begins counter kidnap training for member states

The United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism (UNOCT) has begun a three week counter kidnap training course for some countries at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC)

The training which begun today, April 25 will take twenty five (25) participants from Ghana, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin through various courses to build capacity and capabilities in preventing, investigating and countering kidnap for ransom.

Speaking to Modern Ghana News, the senior officer of the National Crime Agency (NCA) at the Anti Kidnap and Extortion Unit, John Branney stated that, the training being offered to participants from the various countries is necessitated by the close relations both the UK and Switzerland have with the said countries.

He told Modern Ghana News that “it is very important for us to collaborate with countries in West Africa particularly to help combust organized crime especially in kidnapping. The main purpose of this course is to give an awareness and improve the capability and the capacity of all the countries involved in this training and hopefully make those networks and connections so that when we do get those kidnap for ransom cases we can work jointly and effectively with different measures and strategies.”

He continued “in respect to the participating countries we feel there is a need in these particular areas and from a selfish point of view from the British Nationals, we have a lot of connections with this part of the world therefore when a British National may or can be affected we need to have the best strategies with these countries already in place when something happens.”

He added that “there will be a continuous field training to ensure that Continuous Professional Development (CPD) will be done at given intervals.”

He indicated that, technical support will be provided for the trained countries.

The training is expected to take the participants through a one week kidnapping management course and a two week hostage negotiations course to enable participants attain new skills and capacity in handling issues of kidnap in the region. The training will be delivered by experts from the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom and the Swiss Federal Police of Switzerland.

Present at the opening ceremony of the training today was the First secretary, Head of Upstream Threats Campaign in Ghana and Cyber Attaché from the United Kingdom, Mr. Felix Wood and Mr. Tim Segessemann, Attaché, Embassy of Switzerland in Ghana.