Anti-corruption prosecutors across Serbia have filed a total of 6.542 corruption charges against people suspected of various corruption practices in the country over the past three years.

Most of the defendants are charged with abuse of power and, to a lesser extent, with giving or accepting bribery, according to Monday's edition of Politika, a Belgrade-based daily. Perhaps the most intriguing are data showing that only during the last year and the first five months of 2011, the prosecutors filed about 2,000 charges against public servants over activities including some elements of corruption.

The daily said judges stood out, totaling 424 charges having been filed against them, followed by prosecutors, with 155 charges and police officers with 175. As much as 1,163 charges were filed against other persons with special responsibility, Politika added.

State Public Prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac told Politika that the data showed the fight against all forms of corruption had been intensified and that, when it came to the relevant bodies, it was only the beginning of the serious activity that would continue in the future.

State Secretary at the Justice Ministry Slobodan Homen said that the relevant state bodies were yet to face great challenges in combating corruption.

The working group in charge of drafting amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code is working on establishing new criminal and other offences and changing the existing ones to cover a wide range of acts of corruption and to provide for a more efficient court procedure, Homen said.