In 2007 Internal Affairs Sector have continually taken measures with aim to control the legality of work performed by police officers and other employees MoI in order to detect, prevent and combat all forms of overstepping of authority and abuses and other forms of illegal and unprofessional conduct of police employees in the performance of their duties.
In the course of 2007, Internal Affairs Sector was reorganized, new measures were taken to employ new staff in the Sector, create better work conditions and efficient functioning of regional centers in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac and Niš.
Internal Affairs Sector achieved necessary cooperation with competent public prosecutors, the courts, the Security - Informational Agency and the Customs, regarding procedure for filing criminal charges and establishing criminal accountability of reported persons and also during inquiries of allegations which pointed out certain violations and illegalities in work and proceedings of police officers.
In 2007, Internal Affairs Sector filed 122 criminal charges and 12 amendments of criminal charges in total.
Criminal charges were filed against 239 persons of which 159 were police employees and 80 citizens.
There were 282 criminal acts inculuded in criminal charges, of which:
- abuse of official authority (76 cases),
- falsifying official documents (40 cases),
- accepting bribe (36 cases),
- falsifying documents (31 cases),
- fraud (19 cases).
In 2007, police employees of Internal Affairs Sector handled cases where the aim was to prove criminal accountability and file criminal chages for more difficult and complex criminal offences and where large number of police officers participated in their execution.
In 2007, important activities of Internal Affairs Sector were aimed to investigate complaints regarding illegal work and unprofessional behaviour of police officers that were reported in complaints and other adressing which were filed by citizens, representatives of non-governmental organizations and other legal persons to the Sector. During 2007, the Sector recieved 2.384 complaints and other filings (almost 200 a month) with complaints against police officers. In the same period, Sector completed inquiries of allegations in 2.347 cases (of which majority involved complaints of citizens and legal persons – 2.041 or 86,9%). After being checked, the complaints have been decided as follows:
For established ommissions and other violations in work and unprofessional behaviour, the Sector proposed to initiate measures against 295 police employees in total.
Besides proposing measures against police employees, Internal Affairs Sector initiated measures for solving irregularities in work of certain organizational units, which police employees of the Sector observed while performing thier duties and they also gave proposals for increasing the efficiency level, improvement of the quality of work and restitution of standards of professional conduct for MoI .
Employees of the Sector participated in the work of the Commission for Resolving Complaints in the headquarters of the Ministry and regional police directorates, which reviewed 998 complaints against police employees in the course of 2007.
In accordance with the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, the Sector proceeded according to requests for delivering information of public importance. In 2007, the Sector received in total 18 requests for free access to information of public importance, of which 10 were partially of fully granted.
Internal Affairs Sector paid important role to inform the public about its work and results in a full and timely manner by organizing press conferences, giving interviews to media representatives, etc.
One representative of the Sector participated as the president in the work of the Commission for monitoring implementation of European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and degrading tretment or punishmentwhich after visiting police directorates, police stations and outposts, made a complete report regarding the condition of detention premises that was delivered to the Minister of Interior.
In 2007, Internal Affairs Sector paid special attention to cooperation and establishing contacts with representatives of diplomatic-consular services, foreign police services and non-governmental organizations, mostly the OSCE Mission to Serbia, respectively Law Enforcement Department.
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Besides the Internal Affairs Sector, regional police directorates also handled criminal charges against police officers, so the total number of criminal charges filed against police employees of the Ministry is larger than it is stated.
In the course of 2007, 483 criminal charges and 18 amendments of criminal charges were filed, together with criminal charges which were handled.by Internal Affairs Sector
Criminal charges were filed against 551 MUP employees.
There were 680 criminal acts included in criminal charges, of which the wnost numerous:.
Besides criminal charges, misdemenor proceedings have been instituted against 2.299 MUP police employees for severe abuse of official position and against 1.622 for minor abuse of official position