ZAGREB, Dec 22 — Croatian authorities arrested an Austrian national on suspicion of trying to smuggle a corpse, after he was stopped at a border crossing with a dead woman riding in his car’s passenger seat, police said earlier this week.

The 65-year-old man was stopped at the Gunja border crossing with Bosnia in late November after presenting travel documents for himself and another passenger, police told AFP in a statement.

The officers then became suspicious after noticing the female passenger "was not conscious and was not communicating”.

Police called a coroner to the scene, who established that the passenger was dead.

Authorities said the 83-year-old woman had died in Bosnia, and the driver had tried to take her body to back Austria to "avoid formalities related to the transport of deceased”, the statement added.

Police did not elaborate on the relationship between the two, but local media has described the man as the deceased’s legal guardian.

Police said the case had been formally handed over to the country’s prosecutors. — AFP