Prosecutors-general from Asian and European countries will express their determination today to establish an efficient mechanism of coordination and cooperation in order to combat trans-national organized crime.

It is expected that this pledge will be stated in a declaration at the very first Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Prosecutors General Conference, which has been running for three days and will conclude today.

Prosecutors-general from 43 countries and four international organizations vowed to expand international cooperations in combating organized crime, corruption, money laundering, terrorism, and arms and drugs trafficking.

Henk Marquart Scholtz, secretary-general of the International Association of Prosecutors said that the key to combating trans-national organized crime is to ask for more countries to ratify and implement the provisions of the United Nations Convention and implement bilateral legal and judicial assistance treaties, extradition treaties and other regional, inter-regional legal and judicial assistance treaties.

China has been active in seeking international cooperation in the fight against trans-national crime, in particular with corruption cases.

About 50,000 officials have been punished as a result of China's anti-corruption purge that began in 2003, said Wang Zhenchuan, deputy prosecutor-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China.

He said the country's ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption has demonstrated the determination of the top lawmaking body to stamp out corruption in collaboration with the international community.

Problems such as how to cooperate with relevant countries on the capture of malfeasants, in order to prevent them escaping and hiding have demanded the international community to establish a worldwide cooperation mechanism.

An international law against corruption will go into effect on Wednesday and will be conducive to the repatriation of corrupt criminals fleeing abroad and the recovery of assets illegally transferred to foreign lands.

Zhang Xuejun, procurator-general of South China's Guangdong Province, said the convention would provide a strong international legal basis for China to overcome its difficulties in investigating and extraditing criminals, however, the first step is to enact the necessary to enable this legislation, including statutes on money laundering to better adapt the Chinese legal system to the UN Anti-Corruption Convention.

(China Daily December 12, 2005)