Criminal Justice Task Force

The Criminal Justice Task Force (CJTF) is one of the UK’s most successful programmes of support to Afghanistan. It is a national body that investigates and prosecutes serious narcotics-related offences from across Afghanistan.

The CJTF comprises investigators from the Ministry of the Interior, prosecutors from the Office of the Attorney-General and judges from the Afghanistan Supreme Court, all working alongside each other in an independent Central Narcotics Tribunal.

The CJTF has secured over 1000 convictions for narcotics offences since it was established in 2005. In the year 2010/2011 the CJTF sent 383 cases to the CJTF Primary court, 434 cases to the Appeal court and 427 cases to the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan for their final decisions. An increase of 26% increase from the previous year. These convictions include public officials.

In November 2011, there were over 140,000 police officers in Afghanistan and the number of policemen leaving the force has been steady declining to just 1%. Police pay and working conditions are improving and there has been a marked increase in the professionalism of the police – a new training college for senior police leaders was opened at the beginning of 2011 and literacy training is mandatory for all policemen.