The owner and director of the Skladgradnja construction company, Slaven Zuzul, and a former member of the highway operator Autocesta Rijeka-Zagreb (ARZ) managing board, Zlatko Korpar, have been placed in 48-hour detention so that they cannot temper with witnesses who can testify about their alleged involvement in defrauding the ARZ of more than HRK 12 million, Zagreb County Court said on Monday evening.
Investigating judge Boris Ivancic agreed with the prosecution that Zuzul and Korpar could temper with a total of 16 witnesses. Over the next two days, the prosecutor's office is expected to request the launching of an investigation and the setting of a month-long detention, otherwise Zuzul and Korpar will have to be released.
The third suspect in this case is former ARZ director Jurica Prskalo. Prskalo is already in custody in which he was placed on March 31.
Citing only the suspects' age, the Ministry of the Interior reported that the police had carried out an investigation into irregularities in the construction of the Rijeka-Zagreb highway at the sections Kikovica-Ostrovica, Ostrovica-Vrata, Vrata-Delnice, Delnice-Kupjak and Kupjak-Stara Susica, as well as in the construction of several facilities, subway crossings and bridges.
The three men are charged with abusing their powers to defraud the ARZ.
The 49-year-old ARZ Management Board chair Prskalo and 44-year-old Management Board member Korpar are suspected of having made it possible for Zuzul's company in 2006 to collect payments for construction work on said highway sections as a turnkey project, even though they knew that by doing so they would pay more than the actual value of the work done. They signed an annex to the original contract to change terms on the form of payment, thus defrauding the ARZ of more than HRK 12 million.
47-year-old Zuzul was arrested in his home in Split on Monday morning and taken to the police, from where he was taken to Zagreb where he is expected to be brought before an investigating judge, just like Korpar.
This is the third time Zuzul is being arrested. He was arrested the first time two years ago for involvement in a corruption scandal having to do with the excessively expensive painting of the Mala Kapela and Sveti Rok tunnels, and last year he was arrested for involvement in a case of syphoning money from the Brodosplit shipyard.
As for Prskalo, this is the fourth case in which he is suspected of abuse of powers.
