"No party body was informed about the wrongdoing the HDZ is charged with. We will prove that there was a parallel line of financing within the HDZ," one of the party's attorneys, Davorin Budin, said in his opening statement.

He said the HDZ presidency had not made a decision to collect funds and that the party was obviously used as an excuse.

Budin said the party had nothing to gain from illegally collecting money or financing local TV stations, buying a BMW for the prime minister or paying singers to sing at the party's election rallies.

He said that in raising money through the Fimi Media advertising agency, Ivo Sanader did not use only his authority as the then HDZ president, but also as the then prime minister, because "the HDZ president is not in a position to invite directors of public companies" to advise them who to do business with.

"We will prove that the (party's) secretary-general is the person who should be responsible for financing. We will prove that decisions are made by the HDZ presidency and the secretary-general supervises their implementation."

Budin said a new financial analysis would have to be made during the trial because of a HRK 2 million difference in the indictment.

After the indictment was filed, the HDZ's attorneys said the prosecution had made a mistake by "identifying (the HDZ as a political party) with a company of the lowest order with one owner and one responsible person."

Budin said the ownership structure of a political party was different, as all 220,000 HDZ members were its owners.

The hearing continues tomorrow with the questioning of the defendants who today pleaded guilty - the HDZ's former treasurer Mladen Barisic and former accountant Branka Pavosevic, and the owner of the Fimi Media company, Nevenka Jurak.

The HDZ, Sanader and his former spokesman Ratko Macek pleaded not guilty to the charges in the biggest corruption scandal in Croatia to date.