USKOK (Specialised Department for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime) has opened an investigation against three Croatian citizens on suspicion of abuse of position and authority, as well as incitement to commit this criminal offence. The case was opened on the basis of a criminal complaint filed by the Zadar 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 an officer at 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 daughter of Pag’s then-mayor and a then-candidate for the municipal council.
USKOK states that the police officer was also a member of the electoral headquarters for the then-mayor’s list. Using her official powers, she checked the data of persons residing on Pag at least 82 times, both during and outside working hours, and photographed the data of foreigners with temporary residence permits who were entitled to vote for the municipal 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 were no grounds for such a measure for the other two suspects.
According to reports by Index and Glas Istre, the individuals involved are police officer Marija Magaš, Kristina Bistričić, daughter of former Pag mayor Ante Fabijanić, and restaurateur and HDZ councillor Branimir Pari Vidolin. Index unofficially learned that the councillor confessed his guilt to investigators, while the mayor’s daughter exercised her right to remain silent.
Fabijanić lost the local elections, and was arrested two weeks later, Index recalls.
