MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The 2016 General Assembly will be attended by some 830 police delegates sent by the governments of 164 Interpol member states, including Russia, according to the organizing committee.
The four-day meeting will deal mainly with threats posed by terrorist fighters returning to their countries of origins after taking part in combat, as well as the rise of the use of social media as a terrorist recruiting tool, Interpol said in October.
Member states will discuss information sharing, biometric data in particular, as a way to combat the threat of returning terrorists. Other issues on the agenda include the tackling of organized crime proliferation and ways to address the rapidly diversifying field of cybercrime.
On the final day of proceedings, the assembly is set to elect a new Interpol president to replace the incumbent Mireille Ballestrazzi. Other key posts will also be up for election.
Earlier on Monday, a Russian delegation source said that Police Major-General Alexander Prokopchuk, the Head of Interpol's National Central Bureau in Moscow and the Russian delegation head, plans to run for the post of vice president. If successful, Prokopchuk will be the first Russian to occupy the post since Russia joined the organization.
Interpol comprises 190 member countries and is tasked with the search for international and war criminals, tackling terrorism and organized crime and countering smuggling, drug trafficking, money laundering and intellectual property crime. The organization's General Secretariat is headquartered in Lyon, while the General Assembly is Interpol's highest authority and takes all major decisions related to general policy, financing, working methods and programs. The last assembly was held in Kigali, Rwanda in November 2015.
