Petar Cobankovic, a minister and deputy premier in the former HDZ-led government, on Wednesday testified in the Planinska case about the purchase of a building in Zagreb's Planinska Street from which former PM and HDZ president Ivo Sanader allegedly made HRK 17 million in commission.
"I was convinced we wouldn't buy that space. I believed the property rights relations would not be completely solved," Cobankovic said, recalling how he tried to buy the building, with Sanader's blessing, from Stjepan Fiolic, a former HDZ MP and owner of a meat industry chain.
Cobankovic eventually bought the building for the Regional Development Ministry which he headed after the Agriculture Ministry. He said that was the second attempt by the state to buy Fiolic's building after a failed attempt by the Croatian Forests company.
Since he admitted before the trial to involvement in financial wrongdoing with the Planinska property, Cobankovic was given a one-year prison sentence which he will serve through community service.
Fiolic, however, did not plea bargain with the USKOK anti-corruption office, although he confessed to giving Sanader more than HRK 17 million in commission after the unlawful sale of the Planinska property.
Another defendant in the case is Mladen Mlinarevic, whose company in 2009 allegedly doubled the appraisal value of the property before Cobankovic's ministry bought it for HRK 79.9 million.
Sanader is charged with pushing for the purchase at an inner cabinet meeting, as a result of which the sales contract was signed the next day, whereby the state budget was defrauded of HRK 26.4 million, according to USKOK.
