ZAGREB, April 2 (Hina) - There are grounds to suspect that Hrvoje Petrac participated through other persons in the abduction of General Vladimir Zagorec's underage son, but there are no reasons to believe that he had joined in the
criminal organisation that kidnapped the boy, the Croatian Supreme Court said in its ruling on appeals to a decision to expand the investigation into the Zagorec abduction to Hrvoje Petrac.
ZAGREB, April 2 (Hina) - There are grounds to suspect that Hrvoje
Petrac participated through other persons in the abduction of General
Vladimir Zagorec's underage son, but there are no reasons to believe
that he had joined in the criminal organisation that kidnapped the
boy, the Croatian Supreme Court said in its ruling on appeals to a
decision to expand the investigation into the Zagorec abduction to
Hrvoje Petrac.#L#
The Supreme Court accepted a part of the appeal of the Office of State
Prosecutor and quashed the appeal of Petrac's lawyers against a lower
court's decision to expand the investigation to Petrac on suspicion
that he had incited the nine-member criminal organisation to kidnap
the 17-year-old boy.
On 19 March a panel of judges of the Zagreb County Court accepted the
claims of the Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised
Crime (USKOK) that this businessman had incited the criminal
organisation to carry out the abduction and decided to expand the
probe to cover Petrac. The court, however, turned down the
investigators' request that Petrac be treated as the mastermind of the
gang.
As only a part of their requests were accepted, prosecutors appealed
against the Zagreb court's decision with the Supreme Court. The same
was done by Petrac's lawyers.
According to its ruling, forwarded to the Zagreb County Court and
published on its web site on Friday, the Supreme Court says that there
are grounds to suspect Petrac of participating, through other persons,
in the abduction, but there are no grounds to believe that he joined
in the criminal organisation.
The Supreme Courts explains that there has not been enough data or
evidence collected so far to suspect Petrac of having had a very
important role in the gang.
Quashing Petrac's lawyers' appeal, the Supreme Court quoted statements
given upon their arrest by two members of the organisation set up to
abduct the boy. The men claimed that Petrac had first come up with the
idea of the abduction for the purpose of getting ransom money.
Zagorec's son was abducted on 23 February in Zagreb. He was set free
when 750,000 euros, half the ransom, was paid to the kidnappers.
The photo of Hrvoje Petrac with his personal data on Friday appeared
on the Interpol web site with photos of other wanted fugitives in the
world. There is also a statement that he might be dangerous.
(Hina) ms sb