Six unproductive months of this year, only 14 cases of corruption solved by courts

Prishtina, September 4, 2013 – Today, FOL Movement published its report “Corruption Monitor – Corruption figures in Kosovo” for the period January-June 2013, which includes the summarized statistics of relevant institutions against corruption for the first six months the this year.

Kenan Torah, from FOL Movement, said: “This report is a product FOL Movement team in monitoring corruption and the efforts for attention and more increased support to the fight against corruption. According to him since 2010, FOL Movement has tried to present in the form of figures the efforts of institutions in their fight against corruption, and in accordance with this, even the European Commission in Kosovo Feasibility Report has required a standardization of statistics about institutional actions undertaken in the fight against corruption.

Racaj Elbasan, a researcher at the FOL Movement, referring to the findings of this report said that “Departments of Aggravated Crimes of Basic and Special Prosecution of Kosovo have filed 279 criminal charges against 637 individuals.” According to him “Prosecution of Kosovo transferred 281 criminal charges from the previous year, while the end of the reporting period 1140 criminal charges against 404 individuals remained unresolved. Basic Prosecutions also have solved 359 cases; however, the investigations are not accomplished against 177 persons. ”
According to this report neither Basic Courts of Kosovo had a better performance, during this period they have solved only 14 cases, in 2 cases the sentence was imprisonment, in 5 cases the perpetrators were fined, 5 probation cases and 2 cases with other penalties. On the other hand, these courts have 225 unsolved cases at the end of the reporting period.

Meanwhile, the statistics of the Department for Investigation of Economic Crimes and Corruption (DIECC) of Kosovo Police show that this department in the first six months of 2013 investigated 389 cases and arrested 49 different public officials. In addition, DIECC has sent 226 cases to the Prosecution with identified perpetrators, 5 cases with unknown perpetrators and 18 cases with Prosecutor’s special report.

Further, the Government of Kosovo has taken 183 verdicts, among them only one was on “fight” against corruption. Yet, referring to the statistics of this report, the Assembly of Kosovo held 26 plenary sessions, in four of them was discussed about the fight “against” corruption: a) Review of the Strategy and Action Plan against corruption for the period 2013-2017 b) second reading of the Draft Law on enhanced powers for confiscation of the property illegally obtained; c) Review of the draft Strategy and Action Plan against corruption for the years 2013-2017 and d) Review of Anti-Corruption Agency report for 2012.