Zagreb mayor charged in EUR 3m graft scandal

(ZAGREB) - The powerful mayor of Croatia's capital and 15 other people were charged Friday with abuse of power and graft that cost the city and state budgets some three million euros.

Mayor Milan Bandic and 15 other suspects, including his closest aides, and two companies were charged with "abuse of power, trading in influence, tax and customs fee evasion, forging official documents and inciting false testimony," a statement by the national anti-graft prosecutors said.

The offences include hiring waste management services without a public procurement procedure, the illegal financing of Bandic's failed 2009 presidential bid and handing out jobs to cronies, it said.

All this cost the city and state budgets more than 26 million kunas (3.4 million euros, $3.7 million), according to prosecutors' estimates. The offences occurred between 2006 and May 2014.

Those charged include the head of the holding firm managing the city's companies, Slobodan Ljubicic, as well as the chiefs of the Zagreb public transport firm ZET and the city's gas and waste management services.

Bandic, who has run Zagreb almost continuously since 2000, is considered one of the most powerful politicians in the country.

The 60-year-old has been detained and released twice since last October in connection with a graft probe.

A former top official of the outgoing ruling Social Democrats, Bandic was booted out of the party after deciding to run for president as an independent in 2009, a contest he lost.

In the November general election he was elected an MP. However, as a new parliament has not been constituted yet Bandic and other deputies were not sworn in.

The fight against corruption was key in the former Yugoslav republic's joining the European Union in 2013.