Bandić's arrest is world news: Why the native of Herzegovina "fell"

World and regional agencies have published the news that the mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić, has been arrested, reports the BH News Agency Patria.

Agencies report that along with Bandić, the police arrested Slobodan Ljubičić, president of the management board of Zagrebački holding, and Petar Pripuz, owner of CIOS, which deals with the collection and primary processing of industrial waste, on the order of USKOK.

According to them, they are suspected of corruption, abuse of office, and trading in influence.

The Ministry of Interior announced on its website that several people were arrested after a months-long criminal investigation into irregularities in the City of Zagreb and Zagrebački holding.

Bandić (58) was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP), AFP states, which expelled him from the party in 2009, after which he ran as an independent candidate in the presidential elections.

"This populist has been managing the main Croatian city since 2000. He only had one break in his mandate from 2002-2005, and the media often linked him to corruption," writes AFP.

Reuters reports that in reports, Bandić "has been linked to numerous corruption investigations over the past decade but has not been questioned or detained until now."

Reuters places the arrest in the context of the comprehensive fight against corruption that Croatia launched in 2010 to, as it claims, encourage its efforts to join the European Union, and reminds that since then it has tried and convicted several high-ranking state officials, including former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.

The Italian agency ANSA also reports on Bandić's arrest, citing, like all others, reports from Croatian media.

The Slovenian agency STA states that Bandić is the mayor of Zagreb for the fifth term, and that he has usually responded to accusations of corruption by saying that "the institutions of the rule of law should do their job."

Bandić's arrest was also covered by Serbian agencies Tanjug and Beta.

"A native of Herzegovina and former member of the Social Democratic Party has been in dispute with Prime Minister Zoran Milanović for a long time, who, during the local elections in Croatia, stated that 'the clientelist elite should be cleansed of corruption'," writes Tanjug.

It adds that he was last elected as an independent candidate, and his list won the most mandates in the Zagreb city assembly in the last local elections in May 2013.