UK Not Taking Advantage of Interpol's Resources

Monday, July 09, the head of Interpol said, that detectives on three continents are working to piece together details of the failed attacks on two London nightspots and the airport in Glasgow yet, astonishingly, that Britain has not shared any information gleaned from the investigation of three failed car bomb attacks.^[1] This is, he said, symptomatic of London's reluctance to join in global efforts to combat terrorism.^[2] ''We have received not one name, not one fingerprint, not one telephone number, not one address, nothing, from the UK, about the recent thwarted terrorist attacks,'' Ronald Noble, Interpol's secretary general, said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television.^[3]

Two cars packed with gas cylinders and nails were discovered June 29 in central London. The next day, the Jeep Cherokee smashed in flames into the security barriers at Glasgow airport. Police in Australia on Monday were granted more time to question an Indian doctor arrested in Brisbane in connection with the British attacks; a senior Indian police official said investigators there have seized a computer hard drive belonging to the man suspected of ramming a Jeep into the Glasgow airport.^[4] Eight people are in custody as suspects, seven in Britain and one in Australia. One has been charged: Bilal Abdullah, an Iraqi doctor who was identified as the passenger in the Jeep. Most of the suspects worked for Britain's health service and come from countries in the Middle East and India.^[5]

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said last week that authorities would work to expand a ''watch list'' of potential terrorists so that authorities in other countries could be warned of possible threats.^[6]

Noble said Britain, like most countries, has so far failed to take advantage of Interpol's list of 7 million lost or stolen passports.^[7] However, he said Britain was now testing systems to access the database, and said he hoped that would be working within months.^[8] ''I believe it is significant that only 17 out of the world's 186 member countries currently systematically check the passports of visitors to their countries against a global database that contains 7 million stolen passport numbers.......[and m]y view is that the U.K.'s anti-terrorist effort is in the wrong century.''^[9]

Switzerland, he said, checks the database 300,000 times per month, and typically gets 100 hits on stolen or lost passports. Britain now checks the database about 30 times a month, and the United States use it 80 times per month, he said.^[10]Britain's Home Office said the Interpol databases were consulted by the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA).^[11] ''The U.K. works closely with the Interpol secretariat and with member states to provide police-to-police cooperation.....SOCA, as the U.K. arm of Interpol, consults Interpol databases and performs searches on behalf of U.K. law enforcement, in addition to which U.K. police forces have direct secure access to Interpol databases,'' a Home Office spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.^[12]

Interpol
Interpol exists to coordinate international police-to-police communication by creating channels of communication and maintaining a massive centralized records system. The mission of Interpol, in its own words is: "To be the world's pre-eminent police organization in support of all organizations, authorities and services whose mission is preventing, detecting, and suppressing crime." Interpol achieves this by:

• Providing both a global perspective and a regional focus;
• Exchanging information that is timely, accurate, relevant and complete;
  Facilitating international co-operation;
• Co-ordinating joint operational activities of its member countries;
  Making available know-how, expertise and good practice

Interpol will act on the basis of the articulated demands and expectations of these organizations, authorities and services, while remaining alert to developments so as to be able to anticipate future requirements.^[13]

Interpol accomplishes this by following a very rigid framework of steps. First, a magistrate or the Ministry of the Interior in a country asks its National Central Bureau to circulate an arrest warrant internationally.^[14] This warrant is transmitted across the Interpol network to other National Central Bureaus.^[15] Alternately, the originating National Central Bureau can transmit a request to the General Secretariat of Interpol for a "red notice" to be issued. Id. Once the red notice request is examined by the General Secretariat, it can be transmitted to all the National Central Bureaus.^[16] Once a country's National Central Bureau receives the red notice or the wanted notification, it will circulate the notice to the law enforcement departments concerned in its state.^[17] If and when the suspect is found, the police department which located him informs the National Central Bureau in that country, which then informs the General Secretariat and the National Central Bureau which requested the red notice, which then informs the magistrate who issued the arrest warrant.^[18]

Interpol also maintains an international wanted list,^[19] as well as fact sheets about a whole range of transnational crimes.^[20]

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^[1] Robert Barr, Interpol: U.K. not sharing terror info, Associated Press Newswire, July 09, 2007, available at LEXIS, News Library, Wire News Services File.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.
^[8] Id.
^[9] Id.
^[10] Id.
^[11] Id.
^[12] Id.
^[13] INTERPOL, INTERPOL INFORMATION, available here (last visited July 9, 2007).
^[14] INTERPOL, INTERPOL'S ROLE IN TRACING WANTED INDIVIDUALS WITH A VIEW TO THEIR EXTRADITION, available here (last visited July 9, 2007).
^[15] Id.
^[16] Id.
^[17] Id.
^[18] Id.
^[19] See INTERPOL, WANTED available here (last visited July 9, 2007)
^[20] See, generally, INTERPOL available here (last visited July 9, 2007).