At its sitting held on 26 December 2005, the Defence and Security Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia discussed the Report on the Activities of the Ministry of the Interior for the period June – November 2005.

The Report was presented by the Minister of the Interior in the Government of the Republic of Serbia, Dragan Jocic.

Mr Jocic underlined that the Ministry’s priority in the reporting period was ensuring full safety and security of members of the public and their property, as well as suppressing organised crime and corruption.

He referred to illegal drugs as the greatest danger to society in Serbia, adding that, from May to November 2005, the police had seized 1.28 tonnes of narcotics, of which heroin made up 204 kilograms.

Committee members showed most interest in the statement of the War Crimes Prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, that persons helping two indictees before the Hague Tribunal had been identified, as well as in the rumours of deputies having been tapped, and the ongoing interrogation of certain deputies.

Mr Jocic said that the Army Security Agency, the Security and Information Agency, and the Ministry of the Interior were all engaged in locating and uncovering indictees. He said that he was not able to disclose data and information obtained by the police, but that it was definitely possible that the prosecutor had come in possession of new information. Mr Jocic said that there was no deadline by which indictees before the Hague Tribunal had to be arrested, but said that the later this was done, the worse off Serbia would be.

Replying to questions posed by Committee members about tapping allegations, Mr Jocic said that the Ministry of the Interior had not issued an order to tap deputies’ telephone conversations, and that it has never done so, since such orders have to go through investigating authorities. ‘The Ministry of the Interior has never issued orders for deputies to be tapped, since their alleged crimes are not from the field of organised crime. The Ministry does not have telecommunications surveillance equipment; this is done by the Security and Information Agency, and their two operatives’, Mr Jocic underlined, adding that the procedure was ‘so formal that there was no possibility of any telephone being tapped without it being detectable’.

Minister Jocic confirmed that six deputies had so far been interrogated under the prosecutor’s order to investigate possible corruption at the Serbian Assembly. He announced that two more deputies would give statements to the police, and that the investigation may be widened to include recent allegations made in the press.

Mr Jocic told the Committee that activities in the field of organised financial crime were aimed at uncovering corruption in state bodies, and that this resulted in the discovery of corruption of high officials and Supreme Court justices in collaboration with organised criminal groups.

The Ministry of the Interior June – November 2005 Report, stating, among other things, that the rate of the most serious general criminal offences had been reduced, was endorsed by a majority of votes of members of the Committee on Security and Defence.

The session was chaired by the Committee’s chairman, Milorad Mircic.