Former Croatian Prime Minister arrested in Austria

Ex-Croatia Prime Minister Ivo Sanader has been arrested in Austria on an international warrant, a day after he left the country amid a corruption probe.

Austrian police said he was detained “in the Salzburg area.”

Sanader, who abruptly resigned as prime minister 17 months ago, left Croatia on Thursday, when it became clear that prosecutors want to investigate him.

Croatia’s Office for Suppression of Organised Crime and Corruption said Sanader was suspected of conspiring to commit crime and abuse of office.

Sanader is the highest-ranked official to be charged for a crime since the country’s 1991 independence.

Several former government officials and businessmen – including Sanader’s closest allies while at the post – have been jailed as Sanader’s successor, Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, works to fight high-level corruption, which is a key condition for Croatia’s entry into the European Union. Croatia hopes to join in 2012.

According to cables published by WikiLeaks, chief state prosecutor Mladen Bajic told the US Embassy in Zagreb in January 2009 that there were several ongoing corruption cases targeting Sanader and that at least one case could lead to his indictment.

He referred to one case in which Sanader allegedly arranged a bank loan for a neighbour in the 1990s in return for a bribe of 800,000 German marks (€409,500 at today’s rates).