The Osijek County Court on Saturday set a month-long detention for the commander of the Croatian Land Forces, General Mladen Kruljac, and another five suspects believed to be implicated in unlawful sale and purchase of construction land in the eastern municipality of Sibinj, thus embezzling millions from the state budget and the budget of the municipality of Sibinj.
The Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) launched an investigation into Kruljac, Sibinj municipal head Ivica Batinic, former councilman Ivan Miskovic, entrepreneur Ivan Rimac, haulier Zeljko Garic and Zdravko Sockovic, the leader of Slavonski Brod county branch of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), suspected of abuse of office and powers.
The detention was set for reasons of preventing them from tampering with witnesses and for preventing four of them --Batinic, Miskovic, Rimac and Garic -- from repeating crimes.
After their interrogation by USKOK in Osijek on Saturday, the six men were brought in to the Osijek County Court which granted USKOK's request for their detention in custody.
Batinic and Miskovic are suspected of having enabled companies and individuals to buy construction land in Sibinj, in the vicinity of Slavonski Brod, at a considerably lower price from September 2007 to mid-2008, ensuring for themselves gains in millions of kuna.
The 365-square-metre land in Sibinj, worth HRK 16.5 million, was donated by the Croatian government to the municipality of Sibinj to develop a free zone for small entrepreneurship.
In an attempt to increase the value of that land, Batinic and Miskovic agreed with Kruljac to employ Croatian Army troops to construct access roads to the zone, although the municipality did not have documentation for that purpose.
Following the order made by Kruljac and despite the non-approval by the then armed forces' chief-of-staff, the HV troops built main and accessory roads, and their construction cost HRK 6.2 million.
After the road construction, Batinic and Miskovic proposed to the Sibinj municipal council to sell the plot. Deluding the council about the value of the land, Batinic and Miskovic agreed with businessman Rimac to buy that land only to sell it later at a much higher price. In this way, Rimac is believed to have earned at least HRK 5.2 million.
The two local officials are also suspected of having agreed with haulier Garic to buy a part of the valuable land at a lower price and sell it at a higher price, enabling him to earn HRK 1.1 million.
Thus, they embezzled HRK 16.5 million from the municipal budget.
In other murky dealings they enabled the company owned by Sockovic to get 130,000 kuna.
