Serbia: former Minister among dozens of detained in anti-corruption operation
The Serbian Minister of the Interior (Interior), Nebojsa Stefanovic, said that the suspects would have diverted approximately of 100 million euros between 2004 and the present day. "The detainees are facing charges in court because we have enough evidence to suspect that, between 2004 and the present day, these people have committed crimes like money laundering, falsification of documents and issuance of fake documents, bribes, abuse of power and misuse of public funds," said the Serbian Minister of the Interior at a press conference. This is the largest-ever anti-corruption operation in Serbia, according to the Government, and "does not take into account neither the political party of possible suspects, or the function that occupy".A position rejected by opposition leader Bojan Pajtic, the Democratic Party, for it is "a set of arrests with political character". One of the detainees was Agriculture Minister and is a member of the Democratic Party. Slobodan Milosavljevic was also President of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.Other detainees would be, according to the Serbian media, Zorana Markovic, former Director of the National Agency to Combat Corruption and Zeljko Zunic, businessman, as well as several senior officials of the State. Although many of the detainees belong to the Democratic Party, others are part of the Socialist Party, currently in power. The Serbian authorities said that the investigation had intensified over the last year and that police continue to investigate five more suspects.The arrests take place two weeks after Serbia have opened the first two chapters of the accession negotiations to the European Union. #Serbia opens first chapters in negotiations with #EU: https://t.co/1zfcZEuMuA EUCouncilPress <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JeanAsselborn?src=hash">#JeanAsselborn</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JHahnEU">JHahnEU SerbianPM</a><p>â€" Serbian Government (SerbianGov) December 14, 2015
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