Kazimir Bacic, who was recently arrested on suspicion of graft, was on Thursday relieved of his duties as Director-General of the state broadcaster HRT with MPs voting 116 to 2, state agency Hina reported.

The parliament also appointed the current Director of Programming Renato Kunic as the new acting Director-General, and this decision was supported by 77 lawmakers, two abstentions, with 42 MPs voting against the proposal.

Hina did not explain why 42 MPs had voted against Kunic.

Earlier this month, HRT’s supervisory board held a meeting “to initiate the procedure for the dismissal of Bacic” after he had been arrested, Hina said.

Anti-corruption investigators suspect that Bacic, acting on behalf of businessman Milan Loncaric, gave a €50,000 bribe to the late Zagreb mayor Milan Bandic, to secure a construction project in the city. As a middlemen in the deal, Bacic is believed to have been given an apartment worth 1 million kuna (€133,300) in central Zagreb, Hina said.

The Parliament today dismissed a proposal made by Social Democrat MP Arsen Bauk, that Kunic “should be encouraged” to withdraw HRT defamation lawsuits which the state media behemoth had filed against some of its journalists.