Verica Barac: Serbian activist who exposed corruption

(EPA)

Verica Barac, who died earlier this month at the age of 56 after a long battle with cancer, was Serbia's most prominent anti-corruption activist and headed the country's Anti-Corruption Council. Barac came to the council's helm in 2003, as a new pro-Western government began to recover from years of wars and international sanctions suffered during Slobodan Milosevic's decade-long rule. She exposed numerous corruption scandals, such as dubious privatisation deals made during the country's transition to a market economy.

Barac was born near Cacak, Western Serbia in June 1955. She moved to Belgrade to study and finish law school, and passed her bar exams in 1980. As head of the Anti-Corruption Council, which was formed in December 2001, she wrote numerous reports on corruption, not only in the privatisation process but also in the media and other fields of Serbian society.