International Cold Case Analysis Project: Update

Establishing a permanent cooperation in the International Cold Case Analysis Project (ICCAP) moves closer.

For the third time this year, the International Cold Case Analysis Project (ICCAP), a cooperation between police colleges and universities under the umbrella of the Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP), AMBER Alert Europe, and Locate International, will take place from December 2021 to February 2022.

The number of participating universities increases again.

This time, a total of eight British universities (South Wales, Staffordshire, Plymouth Marjon, Glasgow Caledonian, Bath, Winchester, Leeds Beckett, and Canterbury Christ Church) are participating in the ICCAP, as well as the Australian Murdoch University, the German Police Academy of Lower Saxony, the Croatian Police College Zagreb, and the Human Remains Service Ireland.

“It fills me with great joy that with Canterbury Christ Church University and with the Police College Zagreb, two more universities are participating for the first time”, says Karsten Bettels from the Police Academy of Lower Saxony. A total of 49 students and 15 teachers will be involved in the ICCAP. So far, more than 170 students from Europe and Australia have taken part in the project.

Focus on the most vulnerable victims

In line with the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union’s focus and the Common European Approach on Missing Children and Missing Persons (CEA), initiated by AMBER Alert Europe and PEN-MP, on improved cooperation in Europe in the area of missing person cases, especially of children, the third ICCAP will analyse four homicides of the most vulnerable victims, infant killings (neonaticides) from Lower Saxony and, for the first time, a missing person case of a seven-year-old girl from another European state.

The analysis continues

A case from the second ICCAP is entering the next stage: the proposals developed by the students have convinced the responsible investigators and public prosecutors resulting in further measures being planned in the case of the unknown murder victim from the North Sea. A team of students and teachers from participating universities and the Police Academy of Lower Saxony continue to support the investigation in this case.