CRIME IN CROATIA ON THE DECREASE - CRO INTERIOR MINISTER

ZAGREB, Sept 23 (Hina) - Crime in Croatia was on the decrease, while security was good, Croatian Interior Minister Ivan Jarnjak told a press conference in Zagreb on Monday, in occasion of 29 September, Saint Mihovil Day, protector of the Croatian police. The structure of crime changed however, Jarnjak said and added that organized and economic crime were on the increase. Security in the liberated areas was good, he said, denying evaluations that those areas were ruled by lawlessness. Commenting on the Croatian Helsinki Committee's evaluation that the police was covering up the murder of two persons of Serb nationality in Gvozd (about 80 kilometres southeast of Zagreb), Jarnjak said that the Croatian Interior Ministry had so far withheld information because investigation was underway. "The case was solved this weekend, because one perpetrator was arrested on Friday and the other on Saturday", Jarnjak said. Between 1992 and 1995 the total crime rate dropped 31.4 per cent, and the tendency to decrease continued in 1996. The efficiency of uncovering crime marked an increase from 50.1 per cent in 1991 to 73.5 per cent in the past eight months, Jarnjak said, adding that this was above the level of most European polices. Out of 100,000 persons, a little more than 1,300 criminal offenses were registered during the past year, whereas such figures were three times higher in Italy, and in several Central European countries they were also higher than in Croatia (more than 3,500 criminal offenses in Hungary and the Czech Republic, more than 2,300 in Slovakia and more than 2,000 in Slovenia). Jarnjak also said that the number of car wreck casualties was on the decrease since 1992. Not one incident was registered during the tourist season and those who publicly threatened it with terrorist actions had been prevented thanks to the efficiency of the Croatian police. There were no serious criminal offenses neither in the U.N.- administered Croatian Danubian area, apart from thefts of cars and of electrical appliances. The police estimated that almost a third of about 30,000 cars in the area had been stolen. Answering a journalist's question, Jarnjak concluded by saying that the mixed police in the Danubian area included 153 Croatian policemen. (hina) ha jn 231702 MET sep 96