Acting on a request from the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK), the Croatian police said on Wednesday they were looking for five paintings by Croatian painter Vlaho Bukovac from the art collection of former prime minister Ivo Sanader which were not found in a recent search of Sanader's residence and business offices.
The Ministry of the Interior said on its web site that the paintings in question were oils and that they had gone missing in Zagreb in December last year before the Zagreb County Court, acting at USKOK's request, blocked Sanader's and his family's assets.
Speculation about the disappearance of the five most valuable paintings from Sanader's art collection started about two weeks ago. According to the media, at one time Sanader made the oils, together with some other art collectors from Croatia, available for a retrospective exhibition of Bukovac's works in The Hague.
Commenting on media reports that before his arrest Sanader had managed to hide several valuable Bukovac paintings, as well as his collection of wrist watches, one of Sanader's attorneys, Goran Suic, said at the time the claims were unfounded.
USKOK charges Sanader with abuse of power in illegal dealings between the state-owned power supplier HEP and the Dioki petrochemical company, and with conspiracy to siphon money from government ministries and state-owned companies via the Fimi Media advertising agency.
