Croatian banker arrested in corruption scandal
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Croatian police said they arrested at the border Saturday a top former banker wanted for alleged high-risk lending at top state-owned banks in a scandal that saw six other people detained last week, AFP reports.
Josip Protega, former president of the state-controlled Postanska Banka (HPB), was arrested at the Bregana borderpost with Slovenia while returning to Croatia, police said in a statement carried by the HINA news agency.
Local media reported that he had been at an Austrian ski resort when the six others were detained on Wednesday, taking his holidays despite a police summons. Police later issued an international warrant for his arrest.
Along with two other former directors of the bank and four clients, Protega is accused making high-risk credit loans under political pressure that amounted to at least 170 million kuna (23 millions euros/33 million dollars).
They are suspected of “criminal activity related to risk management”, an interior ministry statement said this week.
Protega headed the bank from late 2004 to August last year, when he was dismissed.
Fighting corruption is one of the key conditions for Croatia to satisfy if it is to succeed in joining the European Union by 2012.
January 2, 2009
