U.S. Department
of Justice
Africa Region
Background
The scourge of terrorism has hit numerous countries throughout Africa, killing and maiming thousands of innocents, displacing millions, creating further instability in fragile areas, and threatening U.S. interests and partnerships. At the same time, many countries in Africa seek assistance developing better responses to other transnational criminal threats and addressing the historical neglect of justice sector institutions. In some countries, legislation is antiquated and inadequate to support modern criminal justice practices. In others, legislation may be robust, but procedures and practices are dated or function poorly.
Through the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT), Resident Legal Advisors (RLAs) and Intermittent Legal Advisors (ILAs) provide advice and technical assistance to African prosecutors, defense counsel, judges, law enforcement officers, and related justice sector personnel. DOJ OPDAT works to improve their ability to investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate criminal cases involving complex, transnational, organized crime, including terrorism, terror financing, money laundering, the illicit trafficking of arms, weapons of mass destruction, and wildlife. The DOJ OPDAT programs overall provide immediate and relevant technical assistance to our African partners to enable them to respond to current threats in a manner that supports sustainable improvements in justice sector institutions and promotes the rule of law. Our programs are designed to support fundamental changes that are consistent with modern, international norms of criminal investigation, prosecution, and adjudication.
Over the past several years, DOJ OPDAT expertise advanced the drafting and adoption of new legislation and operational policies in areas such as plea agreements, pretrial detention, civilian-military cooperation in combatting violent extremism, criminal charging decisions, case management, money laundering, cybercrime, and electronic evidence. DOJ OPDAT training and guidance on pretrial detention procedures have accelerated resolution of cases and enhanced the delivery of justice, and our facilitation of meetings across sectors advanced civilian-military cooperation in combatting violent extremism in West Africa.
Case mentoring by DOJ OPDAT experts contributed to the prosecution of terrorists across the region, and our efforts normalized regional and international information sharing and cooperation in investigating and combatting transnational crimes, including and beyond the use of mutual legal assistance protocols.
DOJ OPDAT Africa has provided assistance throughout Africa, with current targeted bilateral assistance in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Zambia. We also have RLAs stationed at Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Stuttgart, Germany and The International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law in Malta (IIJ). These programs are funded by the U.S. Department of State and AFRICOM.
Overview of DOJ OPDAT’s Work in Africa
In West Africa, DOJ OPDAT has emphasized the need for proactive investigations and prosecutions that rely on closer collaboration between police, gendarmerie, and investigating magistrates. In some countries, this has included support for counterterrorism task forces, interdisciplinary training on investigating terrorist organizations and terrorism financing, and the promotion of formal and informal cross-border collaboration among countries in the region.
Across the continent, we also offer our expertise and support for counter narcotics efforts. DOJ OPDAT, in collaboration with the Drug Enforcement Administration and others, implements programs to enhance our partners’ abilities not only to prosecute simpler drug cases, but to pursue large scale cases against international traffickers who use these countries as transit hubs.
In both West and East Africa, we have posted career USDOJ prosecutors, supported by seasoned U.S. law enforcement personnel, to act as resources and mentors for counterparts who investigate and prosecute some of the largest terrorist incidents on the continent. Concurrently, our prosecutors have worked alongside our foreign counterparts as they develop better processes for dealing with the backlog of detained terrorist suspects.
In many countries, the pretrial population of persons held in prison exceeds 60%; many of those detained are juveniles. In too many cases the authorities do not have sufficient evidence to prosecute those detained. Nevertheless, these individuals are held for months or years without trial. DOJ OPDAT has committed to help these countries rediscover their existing legal mechanisms and develop new tools to reduce excessive detention. Individual and regional events, including a 2023 pretrial detention colloquium in Kenya, provided participants with effective strategies that were implemented by some participants within weeks of this informative and inspiring gathering.
Reductions in unnecessary detention will have cascading benefits throughout the justice system, reducing overcrowding in the prisons and limiting exposure of vulnerable detainees to violent extremist rhetoric in those prisons, and reducing caseloads to permit police, prosecutors, and judges to focus on fewer and more important cases. In countries like Kenya and Ghana, our support for targeted programs to reduce overcrowding have not only seen immediate reductions in pretrial detention, but the focus and processes have assisted our foreign colleagues to better understand the mechanisms that have been causing the problems and to work together to solve those problems.
Most recently, part of our effort to support regional information sharing and training has included our teams in Burkina Faso, Niger, and AFRICOM. We joined security and justice sector forces from these counties as well as from Chad and Cameroon, to exchange information on regional terrorism threats and best practices with military/civilian responses to acts of terrorism. DOJ OPDAT has noted that there is a disconnect between the security forces who initially encounter and detain terrorism suspects and the investigators and prosecutors who bring them to justice. This roundtable discussion was meant to specifically address and remedy this lack of coordination.
Recent Programmatic Activities
Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. Delivers Remarks at the Africa Regional Colloquium (5/16/23)