Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic. Photo BETA.

The mayor of the Croatian capital has been released from custody after a judge accepted an offer of 2 million euro in bail.

Earlier this month, Bandic offered a house worth around 750,000 euro for his release from detention.

Eleven others arrested in the same case have also been released from custody with bails ranging from 13,000 to 587,000 euro.

The bail offer of 2 million euro exceeds the figure of 1.6 million euro offered some years ago by former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.

In accepting the bail offer, the judge said Bandic must not return to his post in the city administration, due to the risk of him influencing witnesses included in the investigation, until or unless charges are dropped.

The mayor will not be released immediately, as the Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime, USKOK, has three days to appeal. Bandic will thus remain in custody until next week, when the appeal is either approved or rejected.

Bandic has already been in custody for almost a month, since USKOK conducted mass arrests of the mayor and 16 associates and representatives of private construction companies.

They are accused of corruption, abuse of office, influence peddling and embezzling some 2.6 million euro.

A popular figure, Bandic was mayor of croatia’s biggest city for the last 14 years. He ran in the presidential elections in 2009, losing to the current President, Ivo Josipovic, in the second round.