HFSC hosts delegation from Kazakhstan led by deputy justice minister

December 8, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Houston Forensic Science Center is welcoming to its laboratories on Friday
Kazakhstan’s deputy minister of justice, who is leading a delegation of forensic
scientists, government and law enforcement officials.
Zhanat Yeshmagambetov, the deputy minister, is joined by members of the Kazakhstan
Senate’s committee on constitutional legislation, the head of the criminal police
department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, leading forensic scientists and prominent
attorneys who are part of a World Bank grant dedicated to improving Kazakhstan’s
justice system.
“HFSC is proud to be one of the agencies the Kazakhstan delegation has chosen to visit
and learn from as they seek to reform their own justice system,” said Dr. Peter Stout,
HFSC’s CEO and president.
“It is further evidence of the progress HFSC has made in the past four years as it
transforms into a model forensic agency,” Dr. Stout said.
The delegation will get an overview of Houston’s forensic history and its darkest days
and learn how independent control over science, hiring and procurement has helped it
become a crime lab others look to as progressive and credible.
The group will also tour some of HFSC’s laboratories and look at the work being done
in tight conditions that are not always conducive to scientific work.
HFSC is a local government corporation that provides forensic services to the City of
Houston and other local agencies. HFSC is overseen by a Board of Directors appointed
by the Mayor of Houston and confirmed by the Houston City Council. Its management
structure is designed to be responsive to a 2009 recommendation by the National
Academy of Sciences that called for crime laboratories to be independent of law
enforcement and prosecutorial branches of government.
HFSC operates in seven forensic disciplines.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Ramit Plushnick-Masti
Director of Communications/PIO
media@houstonforensicscience.org

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