LJERKA ERCEGOVIC HANDED OVER TO CROATIAN POLICE

ZAGREB, March 13 (Hina) - Ljerka Ercegovic, former president of the Croatian Postal Bank (HPB) management board, suspected of causing the bank damage worth 34 million kuna (some US$4.096 million), was handed over to the Croatian police upon her arrival at Zagreb airport aboard a regular Croatia Airlines flight from Rome on Tuesday evening. Several minutes after the landing, escorted by Interpol officers, Ercegovic left the plane through its rear exit and was handed over to the police who took her to the Zagreb County Prison at Remetinec, where she will be handed over to the court police and undergo a medical check-up, after which it will be decided whether she will be transferred to the prison infirmary. Ercegovic's attorney Ivan Kern told reporters he expected the investigation against his client to be completed and a decision on the issuing of an indictment to be adopted soon. Kern said Ercegovic would not appear before Zagreb County Court judge Mirjana Rigljan, who is conducting the investigation, because she had already presented her defence on two occasions. Asked how the Italian police had found Ercegovic, Kern said the defence team had informed the Italian authorities about Ercegovic's whereabouts. "An attempted escape from the Croatian judiciary is out of the question," Kern said. Ercegovic was arrested in Italy on January 11, two days after an international warrant for her arrest was issued since the Zagreb police had failed to find her at her Zagreb address on several occasions to hand her a court decision on month-long detention. After she learned of the arrest warrant, Ercegovic, at the time in Italy, told some Croatian media it had not been her intention to escape and that she was undergoing medical treatment for increased eye pressure, as well as that she would be back in Croatia "in ten days." However, the Italian police arrested her the following day and put her in custody at the Udine prison, after which the Croatian Justice Ministry requested her hand-over. An investigation against the former president of the HPB management board started last summer due to suspicion that at the instigation of media mogul Miroslav Kutle, himself on trial for financial malversation, she caused damage to the bank worth 34 million kuna. In mid-December last year, a court ruled that she be detained and the investigation was extended to include murky credit transactions between the HPB and some Croatian and Austrian companies. Along with Ercegovic and Kutle, nine other persons are suspected as accessories. (hina) rml