This was said on Thursday at a session of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly by Oleg Putintsev, director of the department for defence, security and cooperation in the struggle against crime and terrorism of the CIS Executive Committee.
"According to the CIS Statistical Committee, in CIS countries in 2003 the number of grave and especially grave crimes reduced by 2 percent from 2002. At the same time, in the CIS states the total number of registered crimes increased on an average by 10 percent to 3.7 million", he said.
Crimes against property increased by 22 percent, as well as the number of robberies and murderous attacks by 18 percent from 2002.
As regards the preliminary results of implementing three joint CIS programmes - the struggle against crime, illegal drug trafficking, and international terrorism - Putintsev said that in 2003 joint events and special operations by the law-enforcement agencies revealed over 70,000 crimes, detained about 16,000 persons on the wanted list, ended operation of 570 criminal gangs.
Putintsev noted that the development of the international law base of interaction between the CIS countries in this sphere continues.
He said that the preparation of the draft concept of CIS cooperation in opposing illegal migration is over and a draft concept of cooperation in the struggle against terrorism and other manifestations of extremism is in development.
