USKOK (State’s Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime) has opened an investigation against three Croatian nationals on suspicion of abuse of position and authority, as well as incitement to commit this criminal offence. The case was opened following a criminal complaint by the Zadar County Police Administration and relates to the collection of voter data ahead of the local elections on Pag.
The investigation covers individuals born in 1989, 1990 and 1979.
It is suspected that a police officer from the Pag Police Station accessed the Ministry of the Interior’s information system from January to May 2025. According to the investigation order, she obtained the data at the request of the then-mayor of Pag’s daughter and a then-candidate for the city council.
USKOK states that the police officer was also a member of the election headquarters for the then-mayor’s list. Using her official powers, at least 82 times, during and outside working hours, she checked the data of persons resident on Pag and photographed the data of foreigners with temporary residence permits who were entitled to vote for the city council.
She provided this non-publicly available data to the mayor’s daughter on 66 occasions and to the councillor on 16 occasions, all to ensure that the then-mayor’s list secured as many votes as possible. USKOK will propose pre-trial detention for the police officer to the investigating judge of the Split County Court, while there was no grounds for this for the other two suspects.
According to reports by Index and Glas Istre, the officer is Marija Magaš, along with Kristina Bistričić, the daughter of former Pag mayor Ante Fabijanić, and restaurateur and HDZ councillor Branimir Pari Vidolin. Index unofficially learns that the councillor admitted guilt to investigators, while the mayor’s daughter exercised her right to remain silent.
Fabijanić lost the local elections, and two weeks later he too was arrested, Index notes.
