Declining to reveal the contents of the indictment, Devcic said Judge Zoran Luburic would convene a panel of judges in a couple of weeks to decide whether the indictment was founded.

USKOK was unavailable for comment on the new indictment.

The media have reported that after a five-month investigation, indicted together with Sanader are former Regional Development Minister Petar Cobankovic, butcher and former Croatian Democratic Union MP Stjepan Fiolic and his Mesnice Fiolic chain of butcher's shops, and Engineering Bureau managing director Mladen Mlinarevic.

USKOK contends that in 2009, Fiolic sold a building in Zagreb's Planinska Street to the Regional Development Ministry at a much higher price than its market value and that he was helped in that by Sanader, Cobankovic and Mlinarevic, whose company appraised the building and the land to more than twice its actual value, HRK 79.9 million, the price paid by the ministry.

Also under investigation was court expert Mate Bitanga, who made the appraisal, but the investigation revealed that Mlinarevic played the key role in the matter.

The media reported earlier that Cobankovic confessed everything during the investigation, saying he was working on Sanader's request and that he told both Sanader and Fiolic the price was too high. It is assumed he made a plea deal with USKOK for a prison sentence of about one year.

Sanader is charged with pushing the deal at an inner cabinet meeting. The government on April 2, 2009, approved the deal which was completed the next day and which, USKOK argues, defrauded the state of at least HRK 26.4 million.

After being arrested last April, Fiolic admitted the building was sold at an inflated price and said he kept the money. Later, however, he said he took about HRK 17 million to Sanader at the latter's request. He also showed investigators a place on his estate where he was hiding some of Sanader's valuable works of art which police were looking for.

Sanader has dismissed all the charges.