Witnesses from Istria Take Stand

[admin]

The court probe against eight corruption suspects in the Croatian Privatisation Fund (HFP) arrested in the Maestro action is starting at Zagreb County Court with witness testimonies.
At the request of the Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK), the investigation has been declared secret, so the names of the witnesses have been withheld.
Investigative judge Boris Ivancic told Javno that four witnesses from Istria County would be heard today, four witnesses from Zadar County on Thursday and three witnesses on Monday and three on Tuesday.
The investigation has been launched against three vice-presidents of the Croatian Privatisation Fund, Josip Matanovic, Robert Pesa and Ivan Gotovac, head of the real-estate sales department Igor Petlevski, attorney Asja Piplovic and her assistant Mladen Jandricek, attorney from Zagreb Juraj Parazajder, who are currently in custody, and a businessman from Bosnia-Herzegovina Svjetlan Stanic, for whom an arrest warrant has been issued.
Investigation lasted for a year
The USKOK is accusing the three HFP vice-presidents for having demanded bribes of more than three million kuna, a part of which they had allegedly received, as well as gifts so as to help certain investors purchase companies that the Fund had been selling.
Some are accused of divulging business secrets and Petlevski of conspiring with Piplovic and Jandricek and organising into a criminal group. He was allegedly supposed to inform the attorney about tenders the Fund was planning to issue so she could find investors in advance and advocate for them. All three were to have benefits from her lawyer’s fees.
The Maestro operation lasted for more than a year. Two USKOK’s assistants had helped uncover the corruption. The suspects requested bribes from the two and they had consented to being USKOK’s undercover agents. According to the press, the two are Josko Kuzmanic and Mihail Mosnogorski, a Croatian businessman and a Russian real-estate agency owner, who should also be heard during the investigation.

[Croatia vacations]

Statement of Croatian President Stjepan Mesic during his speech at Zagreb Fair that “only the political option that will enable Croatia to start living off its work can have his support”, has caused a reaction of Istrian Democratic Parliament party (IDS) vice president Damir Kajin.

-If President Mesic`s statement is anything to judge by, then it is expected that if he lived in Istria, he would surely vote for IDS. Unfortunately, he forgot to mention that if Croatia was decentralised, some areas would contribute to the country`s development even more, like Istria has successfully been doing it all these years – Kajin said.

He commented politicizing of individual unions when it comes to relocating shipyard Uljanik, saying that “Uljanik is sanctum in this area”.

Kajin believes that a radical turn occurred in the Pula shipyard when Pula authorities, headed by mayor Giancarlo Zupic at the time, decided to compensate for the city`s outstanding debts, i.e. city utility companies, with the property of Uljanik.

-This was a time when Istarska bank, Privredna bank and Zagrebacka bank as well as some other banks threatened with mortgages over Uljanik. This was actually a time when Uljanik management rescued what could be rescued so that a part of Uljanik does not go to Kutle who held 42 percent- IDS vice president Damir Kajin concluded.