The Zagreb County Court on Tuesday issued a 30-day detention order for the former deputy prime minister and economy minister, Damir Polancec, on the suspicion that together with Ivan Mravak, former manager of the state-owned power company Hrvatska Elektroprivreda (HEP), and Ivan Kostan, CEO of the Sibenik-based light metal factory TLM, he had defrauded HEP of some 600,000 kuna.
Polancec was to have been released from custody today after all the witnesses in another fraud case, one relating to the food making company Podravka, had been heard.
Zagreb County Court judge Jadranka Mandusic, who follows the investigation in the HEP case being conducted by the Office for Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK), issued the detention order for fear that Polancec might tamper with about 15 witnesses proposed by the prosecution.
Polancec's lawyer Ante Nobilo said that none of the witnesses were Cabinet members who he said had adopted the decisions in question together with his client.
"If the prosecution doesn't call them, the defence will," Nobilo said, reiterating that he would demand that the government officials who had participated in decision-making processes relating to the sale of electricity to TLM should be called to testify.
The two other suspects, Mravak and Kostan, have been in custody since May 8.
