Yesterday, it was reported that in Croatia, the local police raided the Ministry of Culture and Media on the order of the European Prosecutor's Office. The police, the media reported, searched the premises and computers of certain persons, all because of alleged illegal spending of money from EU funds, at the Faculty of Geodesy in Zagreb.
The investigation is ongoing, and now there is no official information about these searches.
According to the unofficial information of "Jutanji list", the investigators, with the appropriate orders of the investigative judge of the County Court, entered the mentioned ministry in order to search the offices of certain officials of that ministry, for whom there is a reason to suspect that they participated in this case.
The investigation by the European prosecutors is related to the Faculty of Geodesy in Zagreb, and for the first time they started an investigation against specific persons from the Ministry of Culture itself, which paid the Faculty of Geodesy for recording work after the earthquake in Croatia in 2021.
In addition to their offices in the ministry, the police also searched their homes. The police want to obtain data, primarily e-mail correspondence and mobile devices of certain persons, which they have not collected so far. There are mentions of an antidated contract, an intriguing email...
The Minister of Culture, Nina Obuljen Koržinek, said that after the earthquake, the Ministry hired the Faculty of Geodesy to perform 3D imaging of cultural heritage. As far as the Ministry of Culture and Media is concerned, it is not about European but national funds", as reported by "Jutarnji list".
Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said that" this topic has been going on for months. This is neither the first nor the last time that the police came to seize documentation from a body. The purpose of the entire initiative to establish the office of the European Public Prosecutor is that this body protects the legal spending of money from the common European fund. If it weren't for our political will, the office of the European Public Prosecutor would not be here today".
According to currently available information, no one has been arrested.
In January, at the behest of the European Prosecutor's Office, criminal investigators of PNUSKOK repeatedly visited the Ministry of Culture, from which they seized documentation related to projects with the Faculty of Geodesy, whose former leaders, dean Almin Đapo and professor Boško Pribičević, were already suspected of withdrawing millions euros from EU funds. However, it was about confiscation of documents without a search.
Three years ago, Serbia was from the European Bank received a loan for the reconstruction of six cultural institutions, of which only two have been completed so far.
To the recent inquiry of "Vremen" to the Ministry of Culture of Serbia, whether and in what way the funds obtained from the Development Bank of the Council of Europe in the amount of 20 million euros were used to restore cultural institutions, we did not receive an answer even after several urgings.
