The Zagreb County Court on Wednesday accepted an indictment against former Deputy Prime Minister Damir Polancec in a case dubbed "Floodlights", while the other two indictees in the case, Zeljko Drazic and Tomislav Andabak, earlier in the day entered a plea bargain with the anti-corruption agency USKOK, after which they were each given a suspended sentence of one and a half years, which will not be enforced if they do not commit an offence in the next three years.
Polancec's attorney Anto Nobilo said USKOK offered a plea bargain to Drazic and Andabak, the first and the second defendant in the case, but not to his client, who was charged with less serious offences.
Polancec would not comment on the case.
Prosecutor Tamara Laptos said briefly that the indictment was entirely accepted and that 11 witnesses were expected to testify.
When asked why the first and the second defendant were offered a plea bargain, while Polancec was not, Laptos said that it was difficult to say who had proposed the plea bargain and that generally it was defendants who proposed such deals.
The case will now be forwarded to a trial chamber which must schedule a pre-trial hearing and set a date for the start of the trial.
Polancec has no right to appeal today's ruling.
Drazic and Andabak were given suspended prison sentences for falsifying official documents and for abuse of office.
Polancec is charged with having used his office as Deputy Prime Minister to agree the installation of floodlights on a soccer field owned by a soccer club in his home town of Djelekovec near Koprivnica. The job was agreed with a company whose director he then instructed to send the bill to Drazic, CEO of the Zagreb-Montaza company, who then agreed with Andabak, head of the SKY Office project in Zagreb, to issue an invoice falsely stating as the purpose of payment electrical installation work which was never done.
Polancec is also charged with trying to cover up abuse of office by asking the company that installed floodlights on the soccer field, in January this year, to issue a new bill and send it to the local soccer club.
He then personally paid HRK 235,000 (approx. EUR 32,300) into the club's bank account, and in January this year the club paid HRK 230,000 to the company that set up the floodlights.
It is still not known when the trial in this case will begin. Polancec is also indicted in a separate trial which recently started at the Zagreb County Court and in which he is charged with having commissioned an unnecessary expert study from Vukovar lawyer Petar Miletic for which his ministry paid half a million kuna (approx. EUR 68,700).
