Croatian PM sacks well being minister accused of corruption | Politics Information

Prosecutors accuse suspects of ‘accepting and giving bribes, abuse of place and authority and cash laundering’.

Croatia’s prime minister has fired Well being Minister Vili Beros following his arrest on suspicion of corruption as a part of a European Union investigation.

“This morning, former Minister Vili Beros and two different people had been arrested as a part of an operation carried out” by anticorruption officers, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic advised a information convention on Friday.

“As prime minister, I’m personally appalled by the concept anybody within the healthcare system would use their place both for private enrichment or to favour another person inside the healthcare system,” Plenkovic stated.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Workplace (EPPO) within the capital, Zagreb, stated it had launched an investigation into eight folks, together with Beros and the administrators of two hospitals.

The EU’s unbiased public prosecution workplace accused the suspects, and two corporations, of “accepting and giving bribes, abuse of place and authority and cash laundering”, it stated in a press release.

“Mr Beros utterly denies any felony accountability,” his lawyer Laura Vakovic advised journalists.

Plenkovic, who was re-elected in April, stated, “We as a authorities haven’t and won’t shield anybody from felony prosecution if they’re suspected of committing felony acts, no matter who which may be or which responsibility they’ve.”

Between June 2022 and November 2024, 5 of the suspects tried to “safe undue monetary positive factors” in a scheme involving the sale of medical robotic gadgets for a number of hospitals in Croatia, prosecutors stated.

The suspects additionally provided bribes to govern the general public procurement course of, in keeping with the EPPO.

This was tried on not less than 4 events however didn’t work within the case of an EU-funded mission within the coastal city of Cut up, the place their bribe was refused, the prosecutors stated.

Within the different three cases in numerous hospitals in Zagreb, “there are allegations that the minister of well being, in change for a bribe obtained, issued approvals for the acquisition of working microscopes at unreasonably inflated costs, and offered funds for public procurement.”

The worth was “unjustifiably elevated by [$654,000] to the detriment of the Croatian nationwide price range,” the prosecutors added.

Croatia’s Workplace for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) confirmed the arrests with out figuring out the suspects.

Beros was appointed to the put up after his predecessor, Milan Kujundzic, was sacked in January 2020 over his hyperlinks to a case involving undeclared belongings.

Since taking energy in 2016, a number of ministers from the prime minister’s conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) get together have stepped down amid corruption allegations.

Croatia has had extreme issues with systemic and political corruption. It’s typically ranked by worldwide anticorruption teams as one of the crucial corrupt states among the many 27 EU member nations.