A score of witnesses from Croatia and Hungary will be questioned during an investigation of former Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Damir Polancec, who has been remanded in 30-day investigative custody for his role in wrongdoings in the Podravka food company, Zagreb County Court investigating judge Kresimir Devcic said on Wednesday afternoon after issuing the detention order.
Devcic upheld the motion by the national anti-corruption investigative agency USKOK to remand the suspect in custody for fear that he might influence witnesses.
Polancec's lawyer Anto Nobilo told reporters that they would not appeal the detention order, adding that his client might be released earlier if all witnesses were interviewed.
Another suspect in the case, lawyer Zoran Markovic, has been released from police custody.
Markovic's lawyer, Rajko Coguric, expressed satisfaction with the ruling, and told the press that the entire procedure against his client had been launched seven months ago.
With regard to Markovic, the investigating judge said that witnesses were not playing a decisive role but documents collected by USKOK.
Polancec, the most senior former official who has been sent behind the bars, is suspected of abuse of office and of defrauding the Podravka company. The media speculate that the damage caused by Polancec and former managers of this Koprivnica-based company amounts to HRK 75 million.
Polancec, will join Zdravko Sestak, Podravka's former CEO, in Zagreb's Remetinec prison. Sestak has been in custody for more than five months. The other suspects in the case have been in the meantime released.
Lawyer Zoran Markovic is the director of the Fima Ami company registered in Malta, to which the Fima company from Varazdin transferred a 10.6 percent stake in Podravka. One of Fima Ami's owners is Milan Horvat, who was arrested with five other people for alleged wrongdoing in Podravka in an anti-corruption operation in October last year.
According to the media, Markovic participated in negotiations on management rights in the Croatian oil company INA which Polancec conducted on behalf of the Croatian government. It is speculated that in exchange for control of management rights in INA, the Hungarian OTP bank used EUR 34 million deposited in it by the Hungarian oil company MOL to close a loan which Fima had taken from Merrill Lynch to buy 10.6 per cent of Podravka shares.
The police suspect Markovic of having incited Sestak to abuse his office while concluding agreements on the matter.
