Head of the European Union Mission in Serbia H.E. Sem Fabrizi said that a number of international reports showed many weaknesses of Serbia’s state bodies fighting corruption.
Sem Fabrizi added that it was not enough to pass the laws, action plans and strategies, but that all that had to be implemented to achieve results.
Addressing the opening of the conference on state bodies’ fight against corruption in Belgrade, Fabrizi said that “we want to see greater cases ending in convictions, but also how relevant the cases that ended in convictions have been.”
He also said that the latest laws on state bodies’ organisation and jurisdiction in fighting organised crime, terrorism and corruption were heading in the right direction, but their effects in practice had to be seen.
Corruption, Fabrizi added, was a hard issue for investigation because the evidence was difficult to gather.
“There is no victim or a bullet, ballistic test, no one has the interest to make it public, and that’s why money flow should be followed to detect those crimes, especially with nouveau riche,” Fabrizi said.
Serbia’s Justice Minister Nela Kuburovic has told the conference that 275 people have been charged with corruption, 142 of them already convicted, with 62 to prison terms, since March 1 when the law came into effect.
She added that corruption crimes and abuse of office were the most frequently committed and that the so far effects of fighting them were just the beginning since the police and prosecutors “have not yet shown what they know.”
Nebojsa Stefanovic, the Interior Minister, praised the country’s police, prosecutors and judges working on corruption cases, adding they “prove that Serbia is successful in fighting corruption.”
He agreed with Fabrizi that the money flow tracking was a key for corruption cases. Stefanovic added he was aware that the EU would closely watch Serbia’s results in the rule of law, as one of the fundamental condition for the country’s accession talks with the bloc.
Source: FoNet