TURKMENISTAN: LAW ENFORCMENT OFFICERS DISCUSS THE

UNCLAS ASHGABAT 000500 SIPDIS SENSITIVE STATE FOR INL (A. BUHLER) AND SCA/CEN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SNAR PGOV TX SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: LAW ENFORCMENT OFFICERS DISCUSS THE U.S. JUDICIAL SYSTEM REF: TANGBORN/BUHLER E-MAIL OF 4/17. ¶1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Not for public Internet. ¶2. (U) Poloff, at the request of an instructor at Post's INL-funded English Training Center (ELT) for Turkmen law enforcment officers, gave a presentation to a group of students on April 17 in which she outlined the foundation and structure of the U.S. judiciary. (NOTE: The ELT courses are offered six mornings a week to two groups of approximately 25 students each who have been selected from a number of Turkmen government agencies, including the Ministries of National Security, Foreign Affairs, and Interior, the State Border Service, Migration Service, and Counter Narcotics Service. The course content is focused on law and law-enforcement related topics. END NOTE.) ¶3. (U) Based on the questions asked, several students displayed impressive language skills for students with relatively little prior training in English and who have been in class only for the past four months. They also raised a number incisive legal questions, including several hypothetical situations surrounding U.S. 4th amendment protections against unlawful searches and seizures. A few of the most penetrating questions came from a young department head and legal advisor with the Ministry of the Interior. ¶4. (U) After the session, one of the ELT instructors said that her students would benefit from more U.S. reference materials (the materials currently available in the ELT library were all published in the UK),including a law dictionary, and other books and materials on issues such as Trafficking in Persons (TIP),Counter-narcotics (CN),as well as U.S. law enforcement/national security agencies such as the FBI and CIA. She further requested that Poloff give subsequent presentations on TIP, CN, and other related issues in the next few months. ¶5. (SBU) COMMENT: The ELT program is one of the rare venues in which Turkmen law enforcement personnel, who are normally bound by strict contact rules governing their dealings with foreign diplomats, can converse somewhat freely with Embassy personnel. Post plans to follow up with INL regarding recommendations for the requested reference materials. In addition, we plan to look into the possibility of a law-enforcement related project with the Ministry of the Interior as part of our upcoming INL project proposal. END COMMENT. MILES