First Deputy Prime Minister Radimir Cacic told the press on Friday he accepted the Hungarian court's suspended sentence of 22 months with three years' probation for causing a traffic accident with two fatalities, but added that his attorney believed he should appeal because he was innocent.
"I have accepted this sentence even though my lawyer still believes that we should appeal and that I'm innocent," Cacic said after the sentence was delivered in Kaposvar, adding that human responsibility and sympathy were another matter.
He said the court confirmed what he had been saying about speed, visibility, lights and seat belts.
Asked if he was satisfied with the sentence, Cacic said he had no expectations. "I said several times that it was on the court to decide."
Asked if he and PM Zoran Milanovic had discussed his political fate, Cacic said they talked after the accident in 2010 and after he stated which position he would take. He said they won the parliamentary election with that position and that after that, they did not mention the matter again.
The accident took place when he and Milanovic were in the opposition.
Cacic said the case was closed for him now.
Katalin Liptak, whose car Cacic hit, said she disagreed with the sentence and that she was upset, claiming that not everything had been examined, either by the police or the court experts.
She said she would appeal, as did Cacic's attorney.
Cacic will not go to jail if he does not commit the same crime in Hungary in the next three years.
