"Our client did not commit either of the crimes he is charged with," defence attorney Cedo Prodanovic said. He drew attention to the specific circumstances of the trial, including the fact that it was the first time a former prime minister was on trial and the intensive media coverage of the case "which has been less professional and more sensationalist", and noted that the anti-corruption office USKOK had committed a series of substantial errors.

"Some important witnesses were not questioned during the investigation, while others were questioned too much so they often changed their statements," Prodanovic said.

He said that the defence team were portrayed as people who "dared stand up to the DORH (Chief Public Prosecutor's Office) on their holy mission", and all that "under the cliche of zero tolerance for corruption."

"All this was happening with the orchestrated support of selected media which received information from the DORH in exchange for uncritical coverage of the trial, while Ivo Sanader and his family were subjected to daily scrutiny. For a year he has been portrayed in the worst possible light, as a person guilty of high treason, while his family have been portrayed as persons spending money acquired through crime," the attorney said.

Prodanovic said that such a climate put pressure on the parties to the case, the witnesses and the court, which raises the question of whether his client exercised his right to a fair trial. "According to the standards of the European Court of Human Rights certainly not, but that's another story."

Rejecting the charge of war profiteering, namely that Sanader received a commission from Austria's Hypo Alpe Adria Bank at the time of war in Croatia, Prodanovic said that this provision concerning the non-applicability of statutory limitations to war crimes was created "to avoid problems with the statute of limitations."

"The alleged crime has nothing to do with the state of war other than it was sheer coincidence that it happened while the war was going on. This charge does not stand up to elementary logic, because otherwise any crime committed during wartime could be prosecuted as war profiteering," Prodanovic said, noting that there was no legal precedent in this case because only Sanader had been charged with war profiteering to date.

In the continuation of the hearing, the defence team were to present their views on witness statements and documentary evidence in the MOL case.

In their closing statement on Wednesday, the prosecution called for a maximum prison term of 15 years.

Sanader is charged with receiving a commission of 3.6 million kuna (480,000 euros) from Hypo Alpe Adria Bank for facilitating a loan to Croatia from the Austrian bank for the purchase of embassy buildings and with taking 10 million euros in bribes from the Hungarian oil company MOL to ensure it a dominant position in the Croatian oil company INA.