General Coppola and Transparency International duscuss strategies to fight corruption

“The fight against police corruption falls directly under our mandate,” said General Coppola today in Sarajevo. “We know that corruption within the police exists. We have therefore undertaken a number of inspections to curb this problem. In addition, we have encouraged the local police forces to devise and implement their own anti-corruption strategies. I am pleased to see that the BiH Border Police, RS Police, Federal Police Administration, Brcko District and Sarajevo Canton Police have followed our advice. I would like to call upon the other agencies to come up with their anti-corruption policies without delay.”

Brigadier General Coppola further briefed Divjak about the EUPM-led initiative of increasing police accountability: “Our aim is to intensify disciplinary measures against corrupt individuals, promote available instruments that citizens can use to report unethical and illegal behaviour of police officers such as the Public Complaints Bureaus and the “Krimolovci” hotline.”

Talking about future activities, Brigadier General Coppola informed Divjak about the EUPM’s intention to address the issue of corruption also with the BiH prosecutors: “We are currently organizing a police-prosecutor conference aimed at increasing the cooperation between the police and the prosecution. This two-day conference, which will take place coming Thursday and Friday, will also tackle the issue of the fight against corruption,” said Coppola. “I would like to thank TI for the good cooperation thus far and am assured that we will continue our joint efforts in the fight against corruption.”

Divjak expressed his willingness “to continue cooperation with all international and local institutions on corruption prevention and reminded that according to all relevant surveys, BiH is one of the European countries with the highest corruption rate, which requires urgent systematic activities on corruption prevention.”

Divjak also noted a concrete contribution of the TI BiH to fight against corruption through ‘Advocacy and Legal Advice Center’, which provided legal aid for over 8,000 citizens victims of corruption.