Robert Jezic, the key witness of the anti-corruption office USKOK in the corruption trial of former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in the INA-MOL case, pledged at the Zagreb County Court on Thursday to pay into the court's account within 30 days at the latest the EUR 5 million which, according to the indictment and Jezic, the Hungarian oil company MOL paid Sanader for management rights in Croatia's INA.
The court called Jezic to testify again to ask if he stuck by his statement that MOL paid the amount into his company's account for Sanader, which Jezic confirmed today.
Judge Ivan Turudic asked him where the money was and why he had not paid it into the court's account as promised.
Jezic said the money was in the account of his Swiss company Dioki Holding and that he had not deposited it because he had not received precise instructions.
The judge told him to do so today. The witness said he could not do it today, but would do so within the next 30 days.
The director of one of Jezic's Swiss companies, Stephan Hurlimann, is expected to testify via video on November 8. He refused to come to Zagreb twice, saying he stuck by what he said during the investigation into the case. Like Jezic, he claims the EUR 5 million in his company's account was part of a bribe for Sanader.
Pal Kara from Hungary is scheduled to testify on November 9, while Sanader will start presenting his defence on the 12th.
A verdict in the INA-MOL case and the Hypo case is expected to be handed down on November 16. In the latter, Sanader is accused of war profiteering, namely of receiving a commission from Austria's Hypo bank when he was a deputy foreign minister in the mid-1990s.
In the INA-MOL case, Sanader claims the EUR 10 million in question was not a bribe from MOL but money from Russian entrepreneur Mikhail Gutseriev for lobbying for the Druzba Adria oil pipeline project, which Gutseriev himself told the Zagreb County Court.
