VIENNA — Former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader was arrested Friday on an international warrant a day after he left his home country amid a corruption probe.
Sanader was taken into custody on the expressway connecting the provinces of Salzburg and Carinthia and then brought to the detention facilities of the Salzburg provincial court, said Alexander Marakovits, a spokesman for the Austrian Federal Office of Criminal Investigations.
The arrest came after "intense cooperation" between Croatian, Austrian and German authorities that began in the early hours of Friday morning, he said.
Sanader, who abruptly resigned as prime minister 17 months ago, left Croatia on Thursday morning, when it became clear that prosecutors wanted to investigate him for allegedly conspiring to commit crimes and abuse of office. He was last seen driving into neighboring Slovenia on Thursday morning.
Croatia's Office for Suppression of Organized Crime and Corruption said Sanader is suspected of conspiring to commit crimes and abuse of office. It did not disclose details of the ongoing investigation, but at its request Zagreb district court ordered Sanader's 30-day detention.