Beroš Case: Robotic Microscope Paid 200 Times More Than Purchase Price

(Patria) - The Croatian Ministry of Health, headed by Vili Beroš, paid 200 percent more than the purchase price for an expensive robotic microscope for the Clinical Hospital Center in Osijek, as calculated by the European Prosecutor's Office.

The money was paid from the state budget, and the European Prosecutor's Office suspects that everything happened with the approval of Minister Beroš, who also received about 25,000 euros in bribes for it.

The fact that it was an overpaid amount, as believed by the Office of the European Public Prosecutor, stems from invoices found during the investigation, Croatian media report.

Namely, the company of Saša Pozder, an entrepreneur accused by the European Prosecutor's Office in the affair of rigged tenders for expensive robotic devices for several hospitals in Croatia, bought the disputed neurosurgical robotic operating microscope from an Austrian manufacturer for 135,000 euros.

Similarly, it is suspected, happened in the case of the Clinic for Children's Diseases in Zagreb, to which, according to documentation obtained by European investigators, Pozder sold the device for 371,000 euros, while the purchase price was 125,000 euros.

In the third case covered by the investigation, the price that, according to the found documentation, the Sisters of Mercy Clinical Hospital paid Pozder for the robotic microscope was 456,000 euros with VAT.

This same device, according to the invoice attached to the evidence, Pozder bought from an Austrian supplier for 130,0000 euros.

USKOK (The Bureau for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime) is also involved in the operation, which previously arrested Pozder and Beroš. They were ordered into pre-trial detention and transferred to Remetinec in Zagreb.

The USKOK investigation also includes Krešimir Rotim, head of the Neurology Clinic at the Sisters of Mercy Clinical Hospital Center in Zagreb, who will defend himself from freedom with appropriate precautionary measures.