Crime situation in Moscow region remains disturbing

Moscow, Feb 15 (Itar-Tass) Despite the overall decreaseof the crime rate, the crime situation in the Moscow regionremains disturbing, a Russian official has said.

"The crime rate dropped five percent in 2010. This trendpersists for five years now, but the overall crime situationremains disturbing," Andrei Markov, the acting head of theMain Investigation Department for the Moscow region of theInvestigation Committee of the Russian Federation, saidyesterday.

All-in-all 114,000 crimes were registered in the Moscowregion in the past year. The investigative bodies dealing withgrave crimes investigated over 3,000 crimes. More than 2,000criminal cases went to court.

The number of grave crimes reduced in the region lastyear, Markov said. Thus, 746 murders were established, whichis 14.2 per cent fewer than in 2009. The cases of causinggrave bodily harm resulting in death decreased by 7.2 percent. Altogether 527 such crimes were registered lastyear. The number of rapes dropped 13.2 per cent to 183.

"Due to measures taken, the number of solved crimes wasincreasing. Thus, 82.5 per cent of murders, 76.2 per centcases of causing grave bodily harm and 87.4 percent of rapeswere solved last year," Markov said.

Also, 127 crimes of the past years, including 41 murdercases, were solved in the Moscow region in 2010.

"In order to prevent in the Moscow region the crimesituation that formed in Kushchevskaya settlement of theKrasnodar territory and in Gus-Khrustalny town in the Vladimirregion, we have intensified the effort to fight organizedcrime," Markov said. "Our responsibility increased whenthe investigation bodies have become, for the first time,independent bodies reporting directly to the President of theRussian Federation," he said.

"While the legal forms changed, our priorities remainconstant - the fight against corruption, protection ofminors'' rights, and solving grievous crimes and crimescommitted in the past," Markov said. (Itar-Tass)