U.S. Embassy Organizes Conference on Protection of Witnesses of Corruption
On Friday September 18 the United States Embassy in Podgorica, in cooperation with the Judicial Training Center of Montenegro and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)-Mission to Montenegro, is organizing a conference on witness protection, with focus on the protection of persons who report corruption.
Stephen Kohn, Director of the U.S. National Whistleblower Center from Washington D.C., John Haub, Resident Legal Advisor in the U.S. Embassy, and Drazen Buric, Deputy Special Prosecutor of Montenegro for Organized Crime, Corruption, War Crimes and Terrorism, will speak at the conference. Other speakers will include Petar Komnenic, journalist of TV Vijesti, Ljiljana Raicevic, Director of the NGO Women Safe House; Ljiljana Vojinovic, Head of the Office for Assistance and Support to Witnesses and Victims in the cases of war crimes in the High Court in Podgorica, and Ivana Ramic, public relations officer and coordinator of the Office for Assistance and Support to Victims and Witnesses of the District Court in Belgrade.
The conference will gather judges, prosecutors, lawyers, journalists, NGO, and representatives of international organizations. This will be also an opportunity for representatives of the Directorate for Anti-Corruption Initiative, Human Resources Directorate, Ministry of Finance, Commission for Control of Public Procurement Procedure, and Commission for Prevention of Conflict of Interests to present their experiences from a study visit to the United States on August 28- September 4, 2009 that focused on the fight against corruption. The visit was funded and organized by Resident Legal Advisor’s Office of the U.S. Embassy in Podgorica.
Journalists interested in covering the conference should be at the Hotel Crna Gora in Podgorica no later than 08:45 on Thursday, September 18.
For any further information about this event, you can contact Mr. Sasa Brajovic from the U.S. Embassy at +382 67 283 542.
For more information on the U.S. Government’s programs in Montenegro, please visit the Embassy's web site at http://podgorica.usembassy.gov