The USKOK anti-corruption office has indicted Sinisa Varga, a former SDP health minister and former Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZMO) director, of siphoning money from the HZZO by contracting unnecessary services together with two businessmen, one of whom has since died.

Without identifying the accused, USKOK said on Thursday that the indictment filed at the Zagreb County Court accuses the former Social Democratic Party minister and another man of abuse of office, aiding and abetting abuse of office, and illegal business operations.

The media reported earlier that besides Varga, USKOK was after businessmen Davor Dabinovic and Goran Zonja, the latter known from a case against former Zagreb Health Office head Zvonimir Sostar, accused of defrauding the city of almost HRK 40 million via the fictitious cleaning of the city’s sports halls’ air conditioning and ventilation systems.

Varga is accused of arranging with Dabinovic and Zonja the siphoning of money from the HZZO from May 2012 through January 2013, which he headed at the time, by contracting services which the HZZO did not really need in order to make illegal gains.

Zonja has died in the meantime.

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