The parliamentary Domestic Policy and National Security Committee on Wednesday unanimously decided to form a task force to carry out an inspection in the Interior Ministry and hold talks in the State Prosecutor's Office about Social Democratic Party MP Slavko Linic's petition against an anonymous police report accusing him of embezzling in 1991 money of the Rijeka crisis centre intended for purchasing arms.
Linic claims this is a case of abuse of office by Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko, Police Director Oliver Grbic and Interior Ministry spokesman Krunoslav Borovec.
Committee chair Ranko Ostojic told reporters the task force, comprising him, Igor Dragovan, Josip Friscic, Tomislav Culjak and Ivan Santek, would brief the committee about what it had found in the shortest time.
Asked if they would ask for Grbic's suspension, Ostojic said this was not their job and that "it would be flippant of us to do before we establish the accuracy of the allegations that have been made."
In the open part of the committee session, Interior Ministry state secretary Ivica Buconjic presented Karamarko's report on police performance in 2010, praising police work last year.
There were 107,995 crimes reported, including 73,328 in which proceedings were requested by the police and the state prosecution. In 12,448 cases proceedings were not requested and 22,219 were civil actions.
The perpetrators of 1,638 crimes reported earlier were found last year and the police boasted of the crime solution rate of 66.7%.
While 2009 saw 50,388 traffic accidents, last year they dropped to 44,394 (11.9% down).
Last year 6,799 white-collar crimes were reported, up 3.3% on the year.
Police were focused on the suppression of corruption, financial investigations, money laundering, computer crime, and the suppression of the grey economy. Also, 570 corruption-related crimes were reported, up 68.1% on 2009.
