At the time of the Pukanic murder, the whole country was in a sort of state of emergency following the murder of Ivana Hodak, a young law intern and daughter of high-profile Zagreb lawyer Zvonimir Hodak. The president of the country and the prime minister spoke about it, government ministers were sacked, and the police were keeping an eye on all suspects, and the accused Robert Matanic and his friends were certainly among them, the lawyer Rajko Mlinaric told the Zagreb County Court.

Mlinaric represents the accused Slobodan Djurovic, who allegedly served as a link between Sreten Jocic, a Serbian businessman who is believed to have paid 1.5 million euros for the assassination, and the assassins.

"If they had really participated in the organising of the crime, they would have been arrested earlier," Mlinaric said, adding that most of the accused had been arrested only six days after the assassination.

Pukanic was killed together with his business associate, Niko Franjic, by a remote-controlled bomb attached to a scooter parked by Pukanic's car outside the Nacional building in central Zagreb on October 23, 2008. Franjic was a collateral victim.

Mlinaric added that certain information obtained by the police and the intelligence agency SOA also indicated that the assassination had not been carried out by the accused. He mentioned police officer Sipusic, who has admitted in court that one of the accused told him about a plan to commit a murder, but he did not alert his superiors.

"The court may get the impression that Sipusic was not responsible, but considering his subsequent promotion he obviously isn't that incompetent," the lawyer said.

Andrej Ilic, defence counsel for the accused Bojan Guduric, requested acquittal for his client, saying that someone who committed such a brutal crime would not have turned himself in to the police as his client did.