Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Damir Polančec could be released from the Remetinec prison this afternoon if the County Court in Zagreb accepts the proposal of USKOK, which has heard all witnesses in the investigation into irregularities at Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP), thus eliminating the risk of influencing them, reports hrt.hr
A closed hearing is currently taking place, where Judge Jadranka Mandušić, who oversees the USKOK investigation, will decide on Polančec’s release. Polančec’s lawyer Anto Nobilo stated for Croatian Radio that, according to the state of the case file, Polančec should be released from prison in a few hours. He believes that he has been in illegal detention since yesterday evening when the last witnesses were questioned. If there are no new witnesses, Polančec should be released, he said.
USKOK proposes that Ivan Koštan, the head of Šibenik’s TLM, also be released from investigative detention, but not former HEP director Ivan Mravak, who is also suspected of irregularities at HEP amounting to around 600 million kuna, specifically the sale of electricity at multiple lower prices to Mostar’s Aluminij through TLM. USKOK wants to keep him in prison due to the risk of influencing witnesses, but also due to another case, namely the investigation in which he is suspected of attempted abuse and receiving bribes related to contracts for work at the Sisak thermal power plant and the Zagreb heating plant. In this case, HEP’s production director Petar Čubelić and the presidents of the supervisory and management boards of the company Monting PiM, Ljubo Bušić and Anto Matić, are also suspected. USKOK suspects that Mravak was supposed to receive two million euros in bribes from them, but this did not happen as investigations at HEP had already begun, and Mravak ended up in prison.
