A judge at the Sibenik county court, along with two other suspects, was arrested on Tuesday afternoon as a result of a corruption investigation.

The judge, Maja Supe, was arrested along with businessman Blazo Petrovic, and attorney Branimir Zmijanic. Local media cited a statement from the Uskok anti-graft investigators who confirmed that all three would be questioned.

According to unsourced reports published in local media, Supe – who was appointed to her position in 1997 – was arrested on the suspicion that she had received a €15,000 bribe from Petrovic in exchange for an acquittal in a case she was involved with.

Supe is best known nationally for acquitting businessman Tomislav Horvatincic in 2017 in a trial over a 2011 boating accident in which Horvatincic crashed his motorboat into a sailboat operated by an Italian husband and wife, killing both, in the waters off Sibenik.

It was the second retrial – in the first one he was released on probation, in the second, judge Supe acquitted him based on his claim that he had passed out just before the moment of the crash due to syncope. In the third retrial in 2019 he was found guilty and sentenced to four years and 10 months in jail.