The first indictment against former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, in which the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) accuses him of war profiteering, will be sent to his lawyers next week, the Zagreb County Court said on Thursday.
The defence will have eight days to take a position on the indictment, after which a panel of judges will meet to either uphold, reject or return the indictment to the prosecution for revision, court spokesman Kresimir Devcic said.
USKOK has accused Sanader of war profiteering, claiming that during the Homeland War, when he was an assistant foreign minister, he received a kickback from Austria's Hypo bank for a loan for Croatia at a time when the country, because of the war, inflation and extremely high interest rates, had a hard time finding banks from which to borrow.
Sanader is accused of abusing office from the end of 1994 to March 1995, negotiating with Hypo representatives a loan of 140 million Austrian shillings for the purchase and equipping of Croatian diplomatic offices.
USKOK claims that Sanader agreed a kickback of seven million schillings (HRK 3.6 million) and that he received it when Hypo and the Croatian government signed the loan agreement. USKOK has suggested that the entire kickback amount be seized.
This is the first indictment in which abuse of office is linked to a law stipulating that there is no statute of limitations on war profiteering in ownership transformation and privatisation. This legal principle was incorporated into the Constitution last year.
When USKOK investigators interviewed him in late July, Sanader denied taking a kickback from the Austrian bank but refused to answer any questions.
The investigation in this case was launched in early March after the Klagenfurt prosecutor's office handed over, at the request of the Croatian State Prosecutor's Office, documents taken from the Hypo bank in connection with possible wrongdoing. Sanader is suspected of agreeing the kickback with Wolfgang Kulterer and Guenter Striedinger, former Hypo executives under investigation by Austrian prosecutors.
For the indictment, which arrived at the Zagreb County Court yesterday, to become valid, it has to be upheld by a panel of judges after the defence takes a position on it and the investigating judge checks the legality of the evidence.
If the judges uphold the indictment, a preliminary hearing is held before a new panel which sets the trial date and chooses the evidence and the witnesses for the main hearing. Before the trial, the defendant has another chance to respond to the charges, during which time plea-bargaining is possible.
