The mayor of the town of Kutina, 70 kilometres southeast of Zagreb, Zlatko Babic, and three more suspects in the case believed to be connected with the alleged white-collar crimes, were arrested by the police on Wednesday, state agency Hina said.

The Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) and the police did not reveal the identities of the arrested persons. Hina did not explain how they confirmed the identities of suspects arrested.

“Media outlets speculate that apart from Babic, also Davor Kljakic, who was until recently the chairman of the city council, an independent councilor Drazen Kinderman, and Darko Kolsek were arrested,” Hina said.

The arrests are believed to be connected with the recent accusations made by whistle-blower Adrijana Cvrtila.

Cvrtila, the head of the local utility company Eko Moslavina, whose majority owner is the town of Kutina, said recently that Babic and the head of the local HSLS party branch, Davor Kljakic, had exerted pressure on her to make her hire individual members of their parties as well as relatives of local councilors or raise their wages in order to ensure those councillors’ support for the town budget and budget revision.

She reported both Babic and Kljakic to the USKOK anti-corruption agency.

After her accusations, Babic left the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) to become independent. On that occasion he said that the accusations that he used his position to have some people hired prompted him to clear his name before state institutions without having “the name of my party dragged through mud.”