Croatia arrests lawyers and clerks in registry scam
12 December 2007
The suspects are accused of taking bribes of up to 5,000 euros ($7,344) from clients to formally register their properties.
Croatian police have arrested 22 people, including three lawyers and seven civil servants, accused of taking bribes in the capital's land registry office, police said on Wednesday.
Cracking down on corruption in public service and the judiciary is one of Zagreb's priorities in order to advance its European Union membership talks and join the bloc around 2010.
Police and a special anti-corruption squad on Tuesday stormed the premises of the Zagreb land registry, the busiest and slowest in the country, the municipal court and several law firms. The suspects are accused of taking bribes of up to 5,000 euros ($7,344) from clients to formally register their properties, a process that creates headaches for ordinary Croats due to long queues and a heavy backlog of applications. "The operation has not been completed. It is continuing and we can expect further results. Corruption is one of the priorities for the police and one of the most serious crimes," police spokesman Krunoslav Borovec told Reuters.
Former Justice Minister Vesna Skare Ozbolt, who made the first attempts to root out corruption in land registry in 2005, said she was not impressed with the police action.
"This is going for the small fish, again. What matters is not to arrest a few clerks but to set up a system under which corruption would not be possible. But efforts and investment in that area have slowed down," she told Reuters.
Earlier this year Croatia arrested several senior officials of the state privatisation fund on corruption charges in its first serious move to crack down on corruption.