The mayor of the Istrian town of Buje, Fabrizio Vizintin, told the Croatian news agency Hina on Monday that no one from the State Attorney's Office had contacted him about the sale of the town's land to Mile Kekin, the husband of Mozemo party presidential candidate Ivana Kekin.

Media have recently reported that the prosecutor’s office has opened a preliminary investigation into this transaction from 2018.

The mayor says that the municipal land was sold on the basis of a public tender and the price was determined by a valuation expert.

Standard procedure

“Local authorities can only sell land on the basis of a public tender and the market price determined by a court- authorised expert. This was also the procedure followed this time. Detailed information about the tender itself, the expert’s report and additional information can be made available to you transparently and openly for review,” he added.

Following reports about the Kekins’ property in Momjan in the Buje region and that the couple renovated a villa for rent after receiving land from the local authorities at an undervalued price, Vizintin said that the town of Buje sold them two plots in 2018, with the town holding a 20% ownership share in one and 40% in the other.

Kekin: Everything was legal

“So we were not the sole owners. When they came with the intention of buying these parts, and we are talking about land, not a building, we hired an appraiser to do the valuation and based on that price we put the plots out to public tender,” said Vizintin, adding that prices for building land in the Buje region in 2018 ranged from €20 to €40 per square metre.

Ivana Kekin said on Sunday in Split that the purchase of the land and the construction of the house in Istria were legal and that she does not want to focus on Nikica Jelavic, a controversial businessman who met with her husband, nor on the allegations of TV presenter Velimir Bujanec, whom she called a “convicted cocaine dealer”, that her husband bought the land at a price ten times lower than the market value.

The Mozemo party also reacted to the media reports and rejected them as untrue.