Their interviews, scheduled for the morning, were postponed until the afternoon after Zagorec's attorney, Kresimir Krsnik, requested the exemption of the investigating judge and the president of the Zagreb County Court as well as the members of a panel of judges who had turned down his appeal against the decision to launch an investigation.
The requests for the exemption of investigating judge Erna Drazancic and her panel of judges were turned down by the court's vice president, while the president of the Supreme Court will decide on the request for the exemption of Zagreb County Court president Mirjana Rigljan, court spokesman Kresimir Devcic said.
He explained that Krsnik had requested Drazancic's exemption because she had decided to interview witnesses despite his request for a postponement due to his inability to attend the hearings because of illness.
Krsnik feels that the court and the panel which turned down his appeal against the investigation had succumbed to media pressure and failed to give a valid explanation of why they rejected the appeal.
Devcic explained the fact that the investigation was declared secret at the prosecution's request with the judge's discretionary right to grant such a request.
Thus, the press were unable to learn what former Finance and Defence Ministry employees, Terezija Barbaric and Vladimir Lasic, said in their testimonies.
According to the media, Lasic was an occasional driver for German arms dealer Josef Rothaichner. Barbaric recently confirmed that as an advisor to the director of Privredna Banka and chief of the finance minister's cabinet, she had been in charge of foreign payments of arms intended for Croatia's defence.
Zagorec, a retired general, is suspected of abuse of office, namely that in 2000 he took from a Defence Ministry safe diamonds he had received from a German arms dealer in 1993 as collateral for five million US dollars from the ministry intended for the purchase of weapons for Croatia's defence.
An investigation into Zagorec was launched on March 9. Four days later, he was arrested on an international warrant in Vienna, where he has been living for the past seven years. He was released from custody after posting EUR1 million bail.
On March 21, the Croatian Justice Ministry sent the Austrian authorities a request for Zagorec's extradition, to which he objects, claiming the Croatian investigation is politically motivated.