Sarajevo, 3 October 2013 - Two officials of the Sector for Protection of VIP and Facilities of the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies, Samir Mirvić and Miroslav Škobo have spent two weeks in The Hague as the guests of the Dutch National Police - Central Protection and Security Division.
The aim of the internship programme was to provide the BiH colleagues with the firsthand experience on work of the Dutch counterparts.
This study visit coincided with the celebration of the Prince’s Day (Prinsjesdag), the opening of Dutch Parliament, which is celebrated every third Tuesday in September. A festive day, which gathers a lot of people out in the streets to watch the procession of the Golden Coach (Gouden Koets) in which the King is being driven from Noordeinde Palace to the Hall of Knights (Ridderzaal) in the Binnenhof, which houses the Dutch Parliament. Having in mind that the event attracts a lot of citizens and that the procession route for the members of the Royal family is rather long, the event implies heavy security arrangements.
“We were active participants of the briefing in which detailed security arrangements for the Prince’s Day were discussed, and then toured the route and all the locations where the ceremony was supposed to take place to see how to best organise security,” said officer Mirvić.
The team was also briefed by the Integrated Risk Information System and Intelligence teams, i.e. for surveillance and collection of intelligence. “We exchanged experiences on the process of translating the analysis of information, assessment of potential risks and development of all possible scenarios into the measures which are to be taken in providing close protection,” said officer Škobo.
During the programme, the team spent two days at the Police Academy Ossendrecht at the specialised training on the close protection. “In addition, we were made part of the two teams which provided close protection to the VIPs who were considered as high-risk targets,“ added Škobo.
“We wish to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the colleagues in the Dutch Police for the hospitability and a valuable experience sharing exercise for both of us,” concluded Mirvić
The programme was organised in scope of the Twinning Project to the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of BiH, which aims at enhancing Directorate’s capacities and capabilities for VIP and Facilities Protection.