Corruption Suspects To Spend Night In Prison

The arrested parties will not appear before court this evening, but be entered into court records and spend the night in prison.

The six people who were arrested for accepting bribe at the Croatian Privatization Fund (CPF) will appear before a Zagreb County Court investigation judge this evening, but they will not be heard, but spend the night at the Remetinec prison for the purpose of court records, reports the Court. 

The parties suspected of corruption are expected to appear before the investigation judge as soon as in the afternoon, but the police got the Court’s approval to keep conducting preliminary investigation for another 24 hours. 

The arrested parties, including the three vice-presidents of the Fund, will not be heard at court this evening, After their data is entered into the records, they will spend the night at the Zagreb prison, from where they will be taken to a hearing tomorrow morning, investigation judge Ratko Scekic told news agency Hina. 

Subsequently, the state prosecutor’s office must finish the work on the demanding case by tomorrow and submit evidence to the Court, so that a court investigation of those suspected of taking millions in bribes could be started.

The attorney of one of the arrested CPF vice-presidents Ljubo Pavasovic Viskovic said that the fact that the suspects would only be heard before court tomorrow shows that the state prosecutor’s office obviously needs more time to work on the case. 

The parties suspected of corruption in privatization were arrested during yesterday’s “Maestro” campaign after years of secret monitoring operations and work of undercover investigators. There is another suspect who is on the run.   

As the media report, those who were arrested are Josip Matanovic, Ivan Gotovac and Robert Pesa, who were in charge of the sales and real estate sectors at the Fund.  

The joint campaign “Maestro” was conducted by the police, the Office for Prevention of Corruption and Organized Crime (USKOK), and state prosecutor’s office, with the help of the security intelligence agency (SOA). The undercover investigators alone paid the suspects about a million euros in bribes, claim the officials of the police, state prosecution, and USKOK.   

The arrested parties are suspected of taking part in a chain of corruption and, consequently, among other things, themselves creating the conditions on the stock market under which they would later buy shares and embezzle public real estate that had been made available to the Fund. The total number of frauds at the Fund will only be known after the criminal investigation is conducted. The investigation is expected to last for months.