State prosecutor is expanding investigation against former chief of staff of former Prime Minister Zoran Milanović.
The Saucha affair was the main story in Croatian media at the beginning of the year, after it was discovered that hundreds of thousands of kuna had been illegally taken via expenses for fictitious official travel. Tomislav Saucha, currently a member of Parliament and formerly the chief of staff of SDP’s Prime Minister Zoran Milanović, even spent a week in remand prison. The whole affair changed dramatically about a month later when it was discovered that the fraud continued well after Saucha left his post, which indicated that perhaps Saucha was telling the truth when he claimed his innocence and said that some of the non-political officials in the government were to blame, reports N1 on April 10, 2017
However, the latest news from Parliament is that the State Prosecution Officer has now requested for Saucha’s immunity to once again be stripped and that it has expanded its investigation to Sandra Zeljko, who used to work as a secretary in the government headquarters.
Žarko Tušek, Chairman of the Parliamentary Credentials and Privileges Commission, confirmed that they had received the request for additional removal of immunity. The Commission will meet on Thursday at 11 am. It is believed that the State Attorney’s Office is asking for the stripping of immunity due to two additional criminal offenses of abuse of office and authority, and two criminal offenses of counterfeiting official documents.
According to unofficial sources, the investigation has also been expanded to Sandra Zeljko, who worked as a secretary in offices of several prime ministers. She was moved to another position in March when it was revealed that illegal payments continued after Saucha left the government. At the time, it was reported that current Prime Minister Andrej Plenković asked his two close associates to conduct a discreet check to see whether illegal payments continued after Milanović’s government left office. It was discovered that they did, including probably during this government’s term as well.
Saucha claimed that the new findings in the affair were the result of his personal investigation after he filed a complaint against an unknown perpetrator for abuse of office and forgery of documents which took place in 2016.
