DORH and EPPO clashed over the Beroš case

Croatian Health Minister Vili Beroš was dismissed yesterday after he was arrested in Zagreb on suspicion of corruption, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said.

Beros' lawyer Laura Valkovic told local media that he denies any criminal responsibility.

Beroš was arrested yesterday morning as part of the action of the Office for the Fight against Corruption and Organized Crime (USKOK).

Shortly after USKOK announced that arrests and urgent investigations are underway as part of their action on suspicion of corruption, the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) in Croatia announced that it had launched an investigation against eight people, including the minister of health and responsible persons of two Zagreb hospitals, as well as two legal entities due to the existence of reasonable suspicion that they have committed criminal acts of receiving and giving bribes, abuse of position and authority, as well as money laundering.

Chief State Prosecutor of Croatia Ivan Turudić, whose office (DORH) works closely with USKOK, stated that there are two parallel investigations into alleged criminal acts and that EPPO did not inform his prosecution or USKOK about its investigation.

"We had no knowledge that the EPPO was conducting a parallel investigation," he said at a press conference regarding the case of Beroš and the co-suspects for whom USKOK requested custody.

Turudić said that Beroš is charged with influence peddling, not bribery. He said that two more people were arrested and that one legal entity will be investigated on suspicion of committing the crime of accepting bribes.

Turudić accused the EPPO of not complying with the loyal cooperation prescribed by the regulation.

He believes that the Croatian USKOK has jurisdiction over the investigation, because, as he said, it involves funds from the Croatian budget, and only a part of it with European money.

"However, there was no handing over of money, it was about the promise of a gift," Turudić said, although the EPPO stated in its statement that Beroš had received a bribe.

The first man of the DORH added that he can only speak about the investigation led by USKOK and emphasized that it is not about a conflict between him and the European prosecutor Tamara Laptoš.

Turudić said that the EPPO is obliged to inform the competent national authority about any action in the performance of its competence or denial of competence. "Neither USKOK nor DORH were informed about EPPO's actions", he stressed.

Croatian media reported that the DORH requested that the report and the entire file of the EPPO case in connection with the Beroš case be delivered to it quickly.

The EPPO said the criminal group, which sought to secure funding for the sale of medical robotic devices to several hospitals, was suspected of bribing officials in an attempt to win contracts for projects, including those funded by European Union funds.

In a statement to Reuters, the EPPO confirmed that it had not informed the Croatian national authorities about its investigation, which was launched in July, adding that it had asked the DORH to hand over its case file to the EPPO.

The decision on jurisdiction is made by the Croatian state prosecutor, and Turudić said that he will announce that decision soon, and then the body that is not competent should submit all the evidence to the one that is competent.

"If the EPPO provokes a conflict of jurisdiction, then I will act on the basis of that request. I believe that the EPPO does not have the evidence that the USKOK has, nor that the USKOK has everything that the EPPO has," said Turudić, whose arrival at the head of the DORH was harshly criticized by Croatian President Zoran Milanović and most of the opposition, considering him close to the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).

Milanović called for a thorough investigation.

"The Croatian public health system must be exclusively and only a health service available equally and always to all Croatian people. I condemn any use of public health for personal gain and I expect not only a fundamental investigation in connection with the case of misuse of money intended for the health system discovered today, but also suppression and eliminating any possibility of such abuses in the future".

The EPPO announced that the first suspect, as the leader of the criminal association, from June 2022 to November 2024, connected four other members of the criminal association in a joint action in order to obtain illegal financial benefits for two trading companies in which the suspects were responsible persons and actual managers.

The Member of Parliament for Most and the President of the Committee for the Judiciary, Nikola Grmoja, assessed that the DORH apparently stole the case from European prosecutors "by order" in order to prevent the spread of the investigation.

According to the media, the leader of the criminal association is the controversial entrepreneur Hrvoje Petrač, who is not among those arrested because he is not in Croatia. The media add that among those arrested are the director of the Children's Hospital in Klaićeva, Goran Roić, and the former director of the KBC Sestre milosrdnice from Zagreb and the long-time head of the Clinic for Neurosurgery, Krešimir Rotim.

It is suspected that, together with Beroš, they received bribes for the purchase of operating microscopes, the price of which was unjustifiably inflated. Allegedly, Beroš took bribes for the procurement of medical robotic devices for the Clinical Hospital Center Osijek, the Clinic for Children's Diseases Zagreb and the Clinical Hospital Center Sestre milosrdnice from Zagreb, in the total amount of 75.000 euros.

In the EPPO press release, it was stated that only the responsible person at the hospital in Split refused the bribe.

According to EPPO's assessment, the devices were overpaid by 619.582 euros.

The EPPO is the EU's independent prosecution office, which is responsible for investigating, prosecuting and initiating court proceedings related to criminal offenses against the EU's financial interests.

N1 writes that entrepreneur Saša Pozder, director and owner of the Zagreb company Medical Innovation Solutions (MIS), founded in 2020, was arrested yesterday in a group connected to Beroš.

The company presents itself as "the first exclusive supplier of medical products for Southeast Europe, for projects, capital equipment and disposables", and has branches in North Macedonia, Croatia (Slovenia), Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. It is the exclusive distributor for Central and Eastern Europe of BHS Technologies products.

Last year, the company had an income of 6,5 million euros, which is a jump of 287 percent compared to 2022, when the income was 1,7 million euros, and it has three employees, according to N1.

The opposition harshly criticized the government and the prime minister for the latest affair in which the minister was arrested while he was in office. The MP for Most and the president of the Committee for Justice, Nikola Grmoja, assessed that the DORH apparently stole the case from European prosecutors "by order" in order to prevent the investigation from spreading.

Beroš is the second minister in Plenković's government who was arrested while in office.

Before him, in 2022, the then minister Darko Horvat was arrested on suspicion of illegally distributing state incentives, and the then deputy prime minister Boris Milošević, as well as some other officials, were also included in that investigation.

Plenković: Betrayal of all of us

Andrej Plenković, Prime Minister and President of the HDZ, stated that he was appalled by the idea that anyone in the health care system would use their position to enrich or favor someone else.

"No one has a mandate to work illegally and that is why we are so disgusted, angry and disappointed by such cases. We perceive it not only as a betrayal of me personally, but of all of us," said the Prime Minister at a press conference in Zagreb. He said that if the charges against Beroš, a neurosurgeon and HDZ official, are proven, he will experience it as an act of betrayal of the trust he had in him for the last five years.

"On behalf of the entire government, I want to give unreserved support to the criminal prosecution bodies to thoroughly investigate and prosecute this case," said Plenković. When asked how strong a political blow this was to him, Plenković said that he was angry and disappointed.

"I wouldn't say that this is a political responsibility, this is a management responsibility. Let everything be cleared up, emphasized the Prime Minister, saying that he does not know when the new Minister of Health will be appointed.