New arrests in the hippodrome corruption scandal

The USKOK anti-corruption and organized crime office previously arrested the now former director of the City of Zagreb's Sports Facilities Management Institution on charges that he and two other suspects syphoned-off €1.8 million for fictitious security services at the Zagreb Hippodrome.

The president of the Board of Directors of the City of Zagreb's Sports Facilities Management Institution, Goran Đulić, and the acting director of the institution, Jagoda Bončina Franjković, have been arrested. They are suspected of demoting several employees in retaliation for their testimony against former director Kosta Kostanjević in the Hippodrome corruption case.

"If this unofficial information that has been leaked to the media is true, by which they are suspected of degrading two of the institution's employees in retaliation for testifying against the former director of the Institution for Sports Facilities, then this sounds truly unbelievable to me. Firstly because it is unclear to me how they would have known about the testimony given that they were secret, and secondly it is unclear to me what their motives would have been," Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomašević said upon hearing of the latest arrests.

In the immediate aftermath of Kostanjević’s arrest Mayor Tomašević said that the timing of the arrest, ahead of the local elections, was suspicious.

Source: HRT