Former Varazdin mayor Ivan Cehok and another three men, suspected of corruption and embezzling over six million kuna from the city budget, will remain in investigative custody in the next 30 days so that they may not tamper with witnesses.
The Zagreb county court on Friday turned down the suspects' motion to be released on bail.
An investigation has been launched by the anti-corruption agency USKOK into the former mayor of the northern Croatian city of Varazdin, his deputy Zlatko Horvat, the CEO of the Varazdin-based construction company Zagorje-Tehnobeton, Miroslav Bunic, and former city official Stanko Vitez, on suspicion of abuse of office, bribe taking and incitement to abuse office.
Cehok and Horvat are accused by USKOK of having favoured Bunic's companies from 2003 to 2011 and thus defrauding the city's budget of 6.4 million kuna.
Bunic is suspected of having bribed them for those favours.
In another corruption case, Cehok is accused by USKOK of having made favours to another local businessman, Davor Patafta, to the detriment of the city budget.
