Acting Director of Public Prosecutions John Rabuku says the urgency in the need for prosecutors to quickly educate themselves on cybercrime is the reason for staging a national conference.
The inaugural two-day National Conference on Cybercrime and E-evidence for Prosecutors was organised by the office of the DPP in collaboration with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Council of Europe.
“And you would notice in this national conference, I have all the prosecutors present except for one or probably two who are holding the fort in Suva and who have gone to Lautoka to appear in the High Court on some matters,” Mr Rabuku said.
“The reason was to bring all prosecutors up to par on cybercrime.
“It is not a conference where we want people to understand everything about cybercrime but a conference to have an intense introduction on what cybercrime is and what collection of electronic evidence is.
“And what follows after this is there would be specific training in areas we find there is a need to specifically train prosecutors in, so that we can enhance the capacity in terms of prosecuting cybercrime offences and offences that have a cyber aspect to it.”
Mr Rabuku said the prosecutors would be given an insight into cybercrime.
“So that we can collectively decide what we want to be trained in because we have the donors and international partners who are willing to support us in this capacity-building program.
“But often we have seen in the past that our international partners would come with specific training programs but we do not want that.
“Because as we progress as a nation, we know what our needs are.
“And we have been prosecuting for more than two to three decades and we know exactly what prosecutors need and what training they need.”
