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Last update - 08:39 24/06/2008 German conference seeks to bolster Palestinian police, courts By Associated Press Tags: EU, Salam Fayyad, Germany  Germany hopes donor countries will commit $183.6 million to strengthening the Palestinian Authority's police force and court system on Tuesday, improvements that officials say are needed whether or not the Middle East peace process makes progress. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is leading the Palestinian delegation to the one-day Berlin conference in support of Palestinian civil security and the rule of law, being held at Germany's Foreign Ministry. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and officials from Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are to attend, along with international Mideast envoy Tony Blair and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. In all, representatives of more than 40 countries are expected. Advertisement German diplomats have put the amount of money being sought at $183.6 million over three years, of which $56 million is intended to go to the judicial system. The bulk of the funding was expected to come from the $7.4 billion promised to help Palestinians at a donors' conference in Paris last year Over the coming months, the European Union aims to expand its 32-strong police mission to the Palestinians to 70 training personnel in the coming months - including judges, prosecutors and other legal experts. The so-called EUPOL COPPS mission has been bolstering a now 900-strong civil police force. It plans to widen its focus to improving jails and how courts operate. Officials said that strengthening Palestinian internal security was essential to wider success in peace efforts. "Without security on the ground for the Palestinians, but also for the Israeli side, the overarching process ... ultimately cannot be successful," German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said. The head of the EU police mission to the Palestinians, Colin Smith, said last week that money was needed whether or not Israel and the Palestinians meet their stated aim of reaching a peace deal by the end of the year, which would lead to the setting up of a Palestinian state. "There would be no point creating a Palestinian state in six months time if it doesn't have security organizations, judiciary and the institutions that it needs to be a state," Smith said. "If the political process goes well, then I think there's clearly a need for the institutions," he added. "If the political process runs into difficulties, then there is still a need to develop the Palestinian security, Palestinian police and criminal justice sector. Funding is needed to build forensic laboratories and prisons and to install data and communications networks; and to build and run courthouses. Smith said the court system was seriously backed up, with 80 percent of prisoners in Palestinian jails waiting to be sentenced. The funding is for the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank; the authority does not control the Gaza Strip, taken over last year by the Islamic militant group Hamas. Following the conference, Rice and Lavrov plan to attend a meeting of the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers, comprised of Russia, the United States, the UN and the European Union. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Justice for Jews London summit focuses on plight of Jewish refugees from Arab states. No place like home Poll: 77% of Israeli Arabs would rather live in Israel than in any other country.   1.   Why not just deposit it into Abbas` Swiss Bank Account Instead? 11:17  |  Baruch Gold 24/06/08   2.   Everybody knows what they will do with the money collected 11:57  |  Jew- and Bookburner 24/06/08   3.   No more of our tax money to ME countries 14:15  |  Nils 24/06/08

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