"More probes into high-level corruption to be launched soon"

BELGRADE -- Serbian Justice Ministry State Secretary Slobodan Homen has announced that more big steps in combat against corruption can be expected by year’s end.

Slobodan Homen (FoNet, file)

Homen underscored at Tanjug's roundtable dubbed “How to Suppress Corruption” on Tuesday that the Serbian authorities were determined to turn the promise of combat against corruption into more than just a dead letter.

“This has to be proved by concrete actions, and Kolubara is the right proof of such readiness,” Homen stressed.

According to him, the brutal corruption in the Kolubara mining complex cast a shadow on the democratic processes in Serbia after October 5, 2000, while certain previous governments did not have the political will to resolve such problems.

“The arrest of 17 persons suspected of fraud in the Kolubara complex is just the beginning of the action,” the state secretary said, adding that soon there would be more suspects as part of this investigation.

“The issue of other companies which practiced money laundering via Kolubara is yet to be opened, and there will be more suspects and many more companies which will be involved in the investigation,” Homen announced.

He underscored that the state was ready to fight all other forms of crime as well, and recalled that it had already won the fight against drug mafia.

“Today we can proudly say that there is no one in Serbia who could claim to be a leader of an organized crime group,” Homen stressed.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Olgica Miloradović underlined during the round table discussion that the arrests in the Kolubara case indicated that the prosecution was doing its job well and that no one was untouchable.