Criminal police said Tuesday financial harm of EUR 284m was suspected, a figure that corresponds to the suspected unlawful financial gains of a foreign contractor.

Police refused to name any names, but unofficial information obtained by the STA indicates the company in question is Alstom.

Alstom is believed to have secured financial gains with several changes to contracts that ended up swelling the cost of the project.

A total of ten persons have been charged with abuse of office and forgery or destruction of business documentation, the head of criminal investigators at the Celje Police Administration, Damjan Turk, told the press today.

Eight persons from Slovenia, one from Austria and one from France are among the suspects.

The charges are the result of one of several inquiries into a project whose costs more than doubled to over EUR 1.4bn, a case often quoted by advocates of privatisation as an example of mismanagement of state-owned companies and interference by politics.

Despite allegations of massive wrongdoing that have been surfacing since before the construction began, the project was repeatedly pushed ahead by consecutive governments and parliaments and unit six is now almost completed and is in the midst of final tests before being connected to the grid.