The Economic Crime Department of the National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police and the Office of the Special Prosecutor, which is responsible for investigating the banking collapse, will merge at the beginning of next month when new laws take effect.
Photo by Páll Stefánsson.
Both the investigation and prosecution of cases that have been dealt with at the Police’s Economic Crime Department will henceforth be the responsibility of the Special Prosecutor, ruv.is reports.
Alongside these changes, a committee will be appointed to review the organization and arrangement of investigations and prosecutions in such cases and make suggestions for future improvements.
In the prologue to a recently-published annual report on the Economic Crime Department, Haraldur Johannessen, the National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police, said these changes are in accordance with what he discussed in his first meeting with current Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson.
Yesterday, Brynjar Níelsson, chairman of the Icelandic Bar Association, criticized the performance of the Economic Crime Department, saying that it appears as if the office has in fact been paralyzed.
Click here to read more about the investigations of the Special Prosecutor’s Office.
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