BRIEF NEWS BULLETIN IN ENGLISH NO. 5024 HINA Zagreb, 24 July 2003

HR-POLITICS-Politika BRIEF NEWS BULLETIN IN ENGLISH NO. 5024 HINA Zagreb, 24 July 2003 STATE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE SAYS CRIME RATE CURBEDZAGREB, July 24 (Hina) - Croatia's government was briefed on Thursday about a report on the performance of the State Prosecutor's Office in 2002, which shows that the Office has made significant progress in its work, that crime growth has been curbed after a long time, and that the number of reported crimes and perpetrators has dropped one percent. Chief state prosecutor Mladen Bajic said he was satisfied with the results. Backlog cases have been halved, a trend that has continued this year, and all of them might be cleared by the end of 2003, he said. Last year the number of murders was down 13 percent from 2001, the number of crimes against property was down 15 percent, while juvenile delinquency decreased by 16 percent, said Bajic. The Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) has been recording significant progress in the u