Police Standardize Identification of Disaster Victims Internationally... Interpol Invited Training

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The National Police Agency is conducting a joint government agency training session for four days starting from the 28th at the Police Investigation Training Institute in Asan, Chungnam, inviting Interpol DVI experts. DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) is an international standard procedure established by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) for scientific identification in the event of disaster victims. The police explained that this training was conducted to enable rapid and accurate identification of disaster victims.

The training invites two experts from the Interpol DVI team and is attended by 30 domestic officials including police forensic investigators, maritime police forensic investigators, and forensic pathologists from the National Forensic Service, sharing identification cases and techniques. The training will cover the process of conducting a series of recovery procedures according to international standards, including disaster site search, victim autopsy and postmortem examination, fingerprint and DNA analysis, and interviews with bereaved families.

Since 2018, the National Police Agency has established a cooperative system for disaster victim identification jointly with the National Forensic Service, and has launched and operated the 'K-DVI' (Disaster Victim Identification Team) composed of police forensic investigators and forensic scientists from the National Forensic Service. Since 2020, the Korea Coast Guard has also participated. When the Hungarian cruise ship sinking accident occurred in May 2019, three police forensic investigators from the K-DVI team were dispatched to cooperate with local investigative authorities.

Choi Juwon, the head of forensic investigation management at the National Police Agency, said, "Through this training, we will not only organize the division of roles and systems among related agencies to prepare for large-scale domestic and international disasters but also provide rapid and accurate forensic investigation services by international standardization." An official from the Interpol DVI team invited to the training stated, "We hope that Korean DVI experts will actively participate in disaster scenes in the international community and that Korea's excellent forensic investigation techniques will be widely utilized."

Interpol operates the 'Interpol DVI Working Group,' composed of DVI experts from 16 countries. The National Police Agency plans to promote regular cooperation by participating in the Interpol DVI conference, hosting working group meetings domestically, and joining the group to establish a continuous network with Interpol in the future.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.