Presenting a report on the work of state prosecutor's offices in 2004, Bajic said that the crime rate went up by two percent (mostly property crime), which was not worrying. However, he stressed that the fact that the number of unknown perpetrators was increasing was worrying as 47,499 criminal charges were filed against unknown perpetrators.
Istria is the county with the biggest crime rate, particularly the Pula area, Bajic said, adding that the reason for that was the fact that Istria was a tourist destination and most of the crimes there were committed in the summer.
In 2004, courts issued indictments in 57.7 percent of cases based on charges pressed by prosecutor's offices. In 33.8 percent of cases charges were dropped and probes were ordered in only 8.4 percent of cases, Bajic said, adding that this was a good trend in relieving courts of an excessive number of cases.
Prosecutor's offices last year worked on 220,000 civil and administrative cases, worth some 14 billion kuna, Bajic said, adding that the state claimed 4.5 billion and was sued for 8.5 billion kuna.
The chief state prosecutor said that the Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) was yet to take hold, and that he expected it to have a bigger role in the coming period. USKOK received 125 reports for organised crime and 156 for corruption.
The State Prosecutor's Office last year filed war crimes charges in 104 cases, based on which courts passed 33 guilty verdicts and 15 acquittals, while 484 indictees were pardoned.
Clubs of deputies supported the report on the work of prosecutor's offices in 2004. While the ruling party insisted that the crime rate in Croatia was smaller than in neighbouring countries, the Opposition pointed to a significant increase in the number of the most severe crimes. Opposition parties also have doubts about the independence of the prosecutor's office.
Prosecutor Bajic dismissed claims that politics had been meddling in his work and the work of the State Prosecutor's Office.
Some opposition deputies said that Prime Minister Ivo Sanader's statements that he ordered the State Prosecutor's Office to act in some cases pointed to the possibility that the executive authority suggested to the judicial authority to act in some cases and not in others.
Bajic agreed that the legal definition according to which the State Prosecutor's Office should receive instructions from the Government was unfortunate, and said that he had requested that the definition be changed so that in the future it would read that the Government could offer its opinion to the State Prosecutor's Office.
Bajic said his office was working on war crimes cases committed also during and after the Second World War.
Several deputies of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) requested the Prosecutor's Office to launch investigations into communist crimes, stressing that many witnesses, as well as perpetrators of those crimes, were still alive.
The HDZ also asked that the Prosecutor's Office solve all war crimes cases committed by Serbs so that it would not turn out that Croats had committed more crimes than those who attacked Croatia, as reported by some media.