INA's suspended Chief Executive Officer and former Crosco director Bojan Milkovic was released from investigation detention on Wednesday after spending two months behind bars on the grounds of USKOK's suspicion that he, together with Miroslav Pacak, took bribes and forged official documents.
In March, the anti-corruption agency USKOK launched an investigation into Milkovic, the CEO of the INA oil company, on suspicion that he took bribes when he was a sector director at the Crosco company and later as Crosco's Management Board chairman, in collusion with a former platform overhaul project manager, Miroslav Pacak.
Crosco is an on- and offshore drilling and well services contractor which is part of the INA Group.
USKOK has demanded the extension of Milkovic's detention due to fear that he may tamper with witnesses.
Milkovic's lawyer Goran Mikulicic told press that the investigating judge had found that the risks of the suspects contacting witnesses could be removed through other security measures.
Milkovic is barred from contacting 11 witnesses who have not been questioned yet in this case and the ban will be supervised by the police.
Pacak, who was arrested ten days after Milkovic' apprehension, as he was abroad at the start of the investigation, will be remanded in custody.
Milkovic and Pacak are suspected of having solicited bribes, in the period from 2002 to 2009, in exchange for awarding job contracts to other companies. The bribes ranged from 5 to 10 percent of the net contract value.
The media previously mentioned Milkovic's name in connection with a controversial renovation of the US oil platform Key Manhattan at the time when he was Crosco Management Board chairman. The project was reportedly entrusted to Pacak, who at the time was a Crosco employee and co-owner of the RIG-TSG company from Vukovar, which carried out the renovation work.
