A statement issued by the Interior Ministry and the State Prosecutor's Office does not reveal the suspect's name, but sources close to the police and the state prosecution said the suspect was Zagorec.
The police confirmed they were looking for the suspect and that he was not found at his place of residence.
Zagorec was the assistant defence minister in charge of equipment and procurement from 1993 to 2000. He is charged with abusing office to take an undetermined quantity of jewels at the Defence Ministry and depositing them in a safe in his office without documenting this.
As a Defence Ministry official authorised to manage funds for the purchase of weapons and equipment, he is suspected of having kept for himself the jewels he had been entrusted with, given that upon being relieved of duty he did not return the jewels but illegally took them out of the ministry, thus unlawfully acquiring about USD5 million from the state budget, the statement said.
The jewel bag story became public at the trial of businessman Hrvoje Petrac, when a witness, Zagorec's former secretary Snjezana Siprah, confirmed that during his term as assistant defence minister Zagorec received from an arms dealer two bags with jewels which he took from the safe in his office upon being relieved of duty.
Zagorec's attorney Kresimir Krsnik was unavailable for comment.