The Zagreb City Administration confirmed that members of the Croatian Office for the Fight against Corruption in Organized Crime (USKOK) started an investigation at the city administration headquarters today. Zagreb County Prefect Tomislav Tomašević he said they support the independent functioning of the judiciary.

Croatian media report that police have arrested several associates of former capital mayors Milan Bandić, who are alleged to have committed the crimes at the end of last year in the first half of this year. Among them are also some well-known war veterans.

HRT director Bačić is suspected of mediating between the late mayor Bandić and the former director of the Electric Light Bulb Factory Milan Lončarić, Bandić allegedly paid a bribe and received an apartment in the center of Zagreb from the entrepreneur in return, Tanja Borčić Bernard reports for Radio Slovenia.

Among those arrested are two former close associates of Milan Bandić, suspected of abusing his position regarding the illegal replacement of the management of the Srebrnjak Children’s Hospital.

The third crime under the scrutiny of the Croatian police is allegedly a bargain with catering houses at Zagreb’s Advent events, a business allegedly run by a personal driver of Milan Bandić Zdravko Krajina, also among those arrested today.

If the subject of the Advent house investigation, which was sublet by some close to Mayor Bandić for high sums, is no longer the case in the new city areas, the new Zagreb mayor Tomašević promised to help the city authorities, reports Tanja Borčić Bernard.