Bebic was testifying for the defence in Sanader's corruption trial.

Questions by the anti-corruption office USKOK aimed at revealing Bebic's relationship with Sanader resulted in raised voices in the courtroom, prompting presiding judge Ivan Turudic to warn Bebic several times to behave and answer all questions that the court had not vetoed.

Bebic was displeased with questions about last New Year's Eve and guaranteeing for Sanader's bail. Forced to answer, he said he spent New Year's Eve with Sanader, among others, as reported by some media.

Regarding the bail collateral, Bebic said he did not offer his property so that Sanader could be released, "as is suggested from various sides and in the media." He said that only the court could grant release on bail and that he put up the collateral after it was decided that Sanader would be released on bail under specific terms.

Asked if he was with Sanader yesterday, Bebic said they attended the promotion of a book by Jerko Rosin. "We had a very good time, if you want to know that too," he told prosecutor Vanja Marusic.

Judge Turudic interrupted Bebic several times when he was responding to Sanader's question as to whether the HDZ party's presidency had been adopting decisions in keeping with national interests.

"You can answer with yes or no. Just say if it was adopting fantastic decisions, as implied in the question," the judge said, but Sanader said he did not say the decisions had been fantastic.

"You didn't, but your question implied it," said Turudic.

Earlier during his testimony, Bebic said an amended shareholders' agreement between the government and Hungary's oil company MOL on the Croatian oil company INA had been good for Croatia. The changes were adopted by both parliament and the Presidency of the HDZ, Sanader's former party.

The next to testify was Marina Matulovic Dropulic, former environment, zoning and construction minister and supervisory board chair in Plinacro, a natural gas transmission system operator.

She said she took part in negotiations on the purchase of the Okoli gas storage facility, which was a prerequisite for the divestiture of INA's gas business.

Since the negotiations were unproductive, she suggested to the then finance minister, Ivan Suker, that they inform Sanader. "After that, I attended three or four meetings with MOL representatives at the Economy Ministry, but those talks were unsuccessful," she said.

Sanader is accused of receiving 10 million euros in bribes to enable MOL to have a dominant position in INA and to see to it that INA's loss-making gas business was divested.

Sanader is also on trial for receiving a HRK 3.6 million commission from the Austrian bank Hypo after the bank approved a loan to the Croatian foreign ministry in the mid-1990s to buy diplomatic offices, which is why he has been charged with war profiteering because at the time, Croatia was still in a state of war.