The office of the chief state prosecutor in Innsbruck has launched an investigation against former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, according to reports on Friday after the office of the chief state prosecutor in Salzburg on Thursday stated that charges had been pressed against Sanader for money laundering.
According to information from the Austrian news agency APA on Friday, the investigation papers have been transferred from Innsbruck to the Vienna-based office investigating corruption.
We deem it (the Vienna office) to be competent for this case, the spokesman for the Innsbruck office, Hansjoerg Mayr was quoted by the APA as saying today.
The spokesman declined to give any more information.
According to the APA, last week a bank in Tyrol pressed charges on money laundering suspicions which is why it is believed that Sanader might have accounts in Tyrol which can be connected with suspicions raised in Croatia over his presumable wrongdoings.
The office in charge of investigating corruption is expected now to decide on further proceedings.
Mayr said he believed that the decision to that effect could be soon made.
The spokeswoman for the office in charge of investigating corruption, Eva Habicher, told APA on Friday that that office in Vienna had not yet received the documentation from Innsbruck and that more information would be available on Monday.
Barbara Feichtinger, a prosecutor from Salzburg, said on Thursday that a bank from Innbruck had pressed charges against Sanader for money laundering. She said that the Innsbruck office would have to check the charges. Possible proceedings and the issuance of a possible indictment in that case would render the extradition procedure more complicated.
Sanader was arrested in Austria last Friday based on a warrant issued by Croatian authorities. He is under investigation on the suspicion that he conspired with other suspects in the case of the Fimi Media marketing agency in order to siphon funds from government ministries and public companies and that he abused his powers in illegal dealings between the state-owned power supplier HEP and the Dioki petrochemical company.
After the Croatian parliament stripped him of immunity from prosecution on 9 December, a warrant was issued for his arrest because earlier that day he left Croatia. He was arrested the following day near Salzburg and placed in 14-day extradition custody.
Croatia has requested his extradition from Austrian authorities. A Zagreb court has ruled that Sanader be put in investigative prison due to a risk of escape and possible tampering with witnesses who are yet to be questioned in the Fimi Media case.
