"If I behaved with the aim and intention or motive to provide unlawful gain for attorney (Petar) Miletic, let God punish me by dooming me to die in agony, former deputy prime minister Damir Polancec said on Monday before heading to the Remetinec penitentiary to serve a ten-month prison term.
Polancec is expected on Monday to begin serving his 10-month prison sentence for paying Vukovar lawyer Miletic HRK 500,000 from state funds for an unnecessary expert study.
The former high-ranking office-holder addressed reporters after the completion of today's hearing before the Zagreb County Court in the trial against him and several other defendants charged with the fraud regarding the Podravka food company.
After being notified in late July that he must report to prison on August 13th, Polancec requested the judge in charge that the sentence be postponed for three months because his health had deteriorated. In the meantime, the judge requested additional medical records and then decided to postpone the beginning of Polancec's imprisonment for two months.
It is unknown to which correctional facility Polancec will be sent after his admission to Remetinec, but he is likely to be incarcerated in a low-security facility and to be allowed to go to work and spend the weekends out, given that his prison term is less than one year.
In October 2010, the Zagreb County Court sentenced him to 15 months' imprisonment for commissioning the study from Miletic, but the Supreme Court reduced the sentence by five months, while Miletic's sentence was reduced from 12 to eight months' imprisonment.
During the trial, Polancec denied all the charges, claiming he had been working for the benefit of the state and at the urging of former PM Ivo Sanader, who he said had requested that an "important political issue be solved with as little money as possible", Polancec said he had paid Miletic HRK 500,000 in compensation for earnings the lawyer had lost when disgruntled Serb workers of the Borovo company in Vukovar had dropped lawsuits filed because they had not been paid severance packages and because their years of service during the Serbian occupation of the eastern Croatian town had not been included.
The mitigating circumstance found by the Supreme Court for the reduction of Polancec's sentence was that the motive for his breach of law was his attempt to help solve the status of "Borovo" factory workers of Serb origin.
Polancec insists that his punishment is unjust and he hopes the Constitutional Court will grant his complaint against the lawfulness of the 10-month sentence.
