Sanader was transferred by car from a detention unit in Salzburg where he had spent the past seven months.

He was transported in a police vehicle from Salzburg to the Slovenian border where the Slovenian police took custody of him and escorted him to the Bregana border crossing with Croatia where he was handed over to the Croatian police. He was brought to Remetinec Prison at 2150 hours, under heavy police protection.

Numerous reporters and photographers who have been camping outside the prison complex for the past several days were unable to take pictures of the ex prime minister as he arrived in a van with tinted windows.

Sanader will follow a prison procedure this evening which includes a medical examination, after which he will be placed in a cell. It was said earlier that Sanader would be placed in a single room in the women's ward, for security reasons. Former general Vladimir Zagorec is detained in the same ward, also for security reasons.

Sanader will be handed an investigating request and a decision on one-month detention set against him seven months ago because he is a flight risk and because might temper with witnesses in the Fimi Media case.

Sanader, former PM and former president of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, is the prime suspect in the Fimi Media case. He is suspected of conspiring together with other suspects in the case, including former head of the Customs Administration Mladen Barisic, and of abuse of office to siphon funds from government ministries and state-owned companies through the private company Fimi Media. Some HRK 100 million is believed to have been siphoned off this way and some of the money ended up in the HDZ's slush fund.

Sanader is expected to be interrogated by the anti-corruption agency USKOK as soon as possible so that he could answer to charges in several other anti-corruption investigations.

Apart from the Fimi Media case, Sanader is suspected of illegal operations between the Croatian Power Company and the Dioki petrochemical company, owned by Robert Jezic. He is also suspected that in 1994 and 1995, in his capacity as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, he abused his office by arranging with Hypo Alpe Adria Bank a commission of 7 million Austrian schillings in exchange for a 140 million schilling loan the bank approved to the Croatian government.

USKOK has widened the investigation against Sanader and Dioki owner Jezic on the suspicion that they attempted to gain an illegal profit of 10 million euros for Dioki at the expense of the state-owned oil pipeline operator JANAF.

In the meantime, Austria is investigating him and his involvement in money laundering, however no indictment has been issued yet.

Sanader was arrested on 10 December 2010 and has been in the Salzburg detention unit since.

Although he initially opposed his extradition to Croatia, claiming he would not get a fair trial in his homeland, the former PM recently changed his position and agreed to be extradited under a fast-track procedure.

His Zagreb-based attorney said the ex-PM did not want his case to block the closure of Croatia's EU entry talks.

During the investigation Sanader's property and accounts were frozen, as well as the accounts of his family, including those abroad. A valuable art collection was confiscated from his Zagreb home.