Police seized the passports of family members of former Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader - presently awaiting extradition from Austria on corruption charges - and have set up surveillance of the family home, a government spokesman said late Thursday, DPA reported.
Sanader, prime minister between 2003 and 2008, is presently in prison in Austria.
Interior Ministry police spokesman Krunoslav Borovec told national broadcaster HTV that passports were confiscated from Sanader's wife, Mirjana, and daughter, Bruna, to prevent them from fleeing the country.
Their villa in the elite quarter of Zagreb was closely monitored to prevent anybody from taking away valuables, most of all expensive art.
Mirjana Sanader is a professor of archaeology at Zagreb University, while Bruna studies medicine. Another daughter, Petra, studies acting in the United States.
Sanader was arrested in Austria earlier this month on a Croatian warrant, which raised charges linking him to organized crime. The details of the indictment have not been published yet.
According to media reports, he is suspected of stealing millions of dollars by abusing his office. In addition, Austrian authorities are investigating him in connection with money laundering.
Croatian authorities cracked down on top-level corruption after Sanader resigned without a proper explanation halfway through his second term in July 2009.
Two members of his cabinet were already sentenced to prison for corruption and dozens of others, officials and managers from Sanader's inner circle of the privileged, have been arrested or investigated.
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