Playboy Croatian Priest's "Accomplice" Arrested

By Matthew Day
The Telegraph
October 26, 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/9636145/Playboy-Croatian-priests-accomplice-arrested.html

A female banker believed to be the accomplice of a Croatian Catholic priest who went on the run with around a ?1 million pocketed from an illegal property deal has been arrested.

The 34-year-old clergyman has been charged with abuse of office and had his passport confiscated

Jasmina Bilonic, 41, faces charges of aiding Father Sime Nimac abuse his office and authority when he allegedly sold a piece of Church land without permission earlier in the year. The director of private banking for a Split bank was remanded in custody.

Arrested in Zagreb last week, Father Nimac hit the news in both his native Croatia and around the world when he disappeared from his parish with millions of Croatian kuna in cash, and leaving behind a mountain of rumours of an extravagant lifestyle festooned with cars, fine clothes, boats and a relationship with a married woman.

But despite the scandal and Father Nimac's Franciscan order issuing an apology for his behaviour some of his parishioners have rallied to his defence, claiming that the 36-year-old priest was led astray by a mysterious femme fatale character.

"We are not trying to justify what he did but he was blackmailed by her after they had a relationship," two locals from the town of Biograd, where the priest lived told the newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija. "He literally paid her to keep her quiet. The whole town knows all about this."

The paper cites other Biograd residents as saying that an expensive car, a motorboat called "Lucky Me" and a flat, which were believed to have belonged to Father Nimac, were in fact bought to placate his blackmailer

In an interview for Slobodna Dalmacija conducted before her arrest, Mrs Bilonic denied having any romantic ties with Father Nimac.

"We were not having an affair. It seems that if he was seen having a cup of coffee with a woman they were presumed to be having an affair," she told the paper. "I knew him and our relationship was purely business because as head of the parish he had an account in our bank."

Although some of the money made from the property deal appears to have been already spent Father Nimac has so far refused to reveal the whereabouts of the rest of the cash.