The Department of Internal Control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs submitted an annual report on its work for the previous year. It contains data on what SUK undertook during the past year, such as the number of criminal charges filed against police officers, what measures and actions were taken, as well as other data that are important for evaluating SUK’s work. “Danas” compared this report with the reports for 2024 and 2023.
According to last year’s report, SUK discovered 307 criminal acts committed by police officers and 210 criminal charges were filed. Less than half of these crimes are related to corruption, while the rest are crimes that are treated like others.
Of the corrupt criminal acts, abuse of official position is the most common – as many as 120, while only 20 reports were filed for accepting bribes.
When it comes to other criminal acts, in this report it is written that most of those acts are document forgery.
However, unlike the reports from 2023 and 2024, the SUK did not create a table of other criminal acts in the last one, where all those that fall into that category are listed.
What is interesting, especially for the year 2024, is that SUK filed only three criminal reports for the crime of abuse and torture.
This criminal offense is mostly committed by police officers, that is, if there is excessive use of force, it is generally treated as the aforementioned offense.
The same number of reports of abuse and torture were filed by the SUK in 2023, while the public was denied this information for 2025, even though there were dozens of protests where the police intervened against citizens, and several cases where it is obvious that police officers use excessive force were documented in video recordings.
When it comes to preventive measures, the SUK stated how many integrity tests it conducted this year, which represent a series of operational measures and actions to determine whether some police officers have close ties with persons from the criminal environment or perform some tasks that are incompatible with the service.
A total of 81 integrity tests were conducted, seven of which had a negative result. In 2024, only 23 tests were conducted, but even 11 were negative, while in 2023, 26 tests were conducted, eight of which were negative.
For all employees of the ministry who passed the integrity test, disciplinary proceedings were initiated for serious violation of official duties.
However, if it is taken into account that about 40,000 people work in the MUP (unofficial data), even in the year 2025, when many more integrity tests have been performed, it amounts to only 0.2 percent of those tested.
The report from last year also states how many police officers reported newly acquired property or a change in property status.
Last year, 1,447 changes in property status and 50 new property declarations of managers and persons living with them in a joint household were reported to SUK. During the year 2024, as many as 957 new reports of property of managers in the MUP were reported to SUK, and in 2023, 1,016 reports.
Reports were sent to the Cabinet of Ministers for those managers for whom SUK found inaccuracies in the reports so that proceedings could be taken against them.
Who in the MUP is obliged to declare property?
Otherwise, according to the Rulebook on the method of control and reporting of changes in property status in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, only strategic, high, middle and operational level managers, as well as other employees in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in high-risk positions determined by the analysis of the risk of corruption, are required to report the change in property status to SUK.
They are obliged to report changes in their property status, the value of which exceeds the amount of the annual average salary without taxes and contributions, on a special form called the property card. The SUK later checks that data with the real situation and, if there are discrepancies or it is determined that assets and changes in the financial situation have not been reported, appropriate disciplinary and other measures are submitted.
All other MUP employees are not required to declare their assets.
As for the initiation of disciplinary proceedings, the figures for all three years are around the same figure – between 280 and around 350 initiatives.
The biggest shortcoming of these reports is that there is no separation of criminal acts committed by managers in the MUP and those committed by employees in executive positions, so it cannot be seen from them whether corruption is more widespread at the top of the MUP or in lower levels. The same is the case with integrity tests, so from these reports we cannot see how many managers were subjected to such a test.
Although these annual reports are full of figures and statistics, SUK still has not resolved the biggest scandals that have rocked the MUP in the last two years.
The case of the murder of Dalibor Dragijević in the station in Bor, who was suspected of being an accomplice in the murder of the girl Danka Ilić, has not yet been resolved. There are no people responsible for the beating of pensioner Ilija Kostić from Novi Sad, whose testicles were removed after being beaten at the police station.
The case of police brutality that happened last summer in Valjevo has also not been resolved, and this case was recently taken over by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime.
In addition to these cases, minor incidents where police brutality against citizens was documented during protests have not been resolved.
All these cases fall under the jurisdiction of the SUK, and the most common problem is that the SUK refuses to act according to the orders of the acting prosecutor’s offices when it comes to the collection of evidence and other investigative actions that should be carried out.
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