The owner of Dioki petrochemical company, Robert Jezic, said at the Zagreb County Court on Thursday that on behalf of former prime minister Ivo Sanader he had received, through his Swiss company Xenoplast, a half of a 10 million euro bribe of the Hungarian oil company MOL to Sanader, and that the money was still in the bank account, while the transfer of the rest of the bribe had been arranged by Sanader's brother Flavio.
Jezic, the key witness in the trial, said that after Sanader had stepped down as PM, he (Jezic) tried to use that situation and walk out of a deal under which MOL was to pay money to Sanader through the bank account of his Swiss company, in line with a contract between Sanader and companies based in Cyprus on his consulting services.
The witness said that at that time, he no longer had reason to fear that Sanader might harm his companies' business if he refused to do him a favour. He said that frequent media reports made him realise the real nature of Sanader's relationship with MOL, about which he had not known anything before, even though in the meantime he had been in the company of Sanader and MOL executive Zsolt Hernadi on several occasions.
The anti-corruption agency USKOK alleges that Hernadi gave Sanader 10 million euros in bribes to make it possible for MOL to obtain management rights in the Croatian oil company INA.
Jezic claims that he saw Hernadi in Sanader's company in Sanader's cabinet in the government headquarters in May 2009, when he was told that Sanader's fee for "consulting services" would be paid in two parts.
In mid-June 2009, the first five million euros was paid into the bank account of Jezic's company, and Sanader asked him immediately when the money could be delivered to him at the earliest, according to the witness.
"I told him again that it would not be good to do anything because there was a time period during which transfers from exotic countries definitely had to remain in the account," Jezic said, adding that Sanader was very dissatisfied with that.
Jezic said that he was not fully aware of the real nature of the relationship between Sanader and MOL even at the time when Sanader met with Hernadi at the Marcellino restaurant in Zagreb, where their meeting was recorded on a surveillance camera.
"(Sanader's) resignation and departure fuelled speculations about the questionable relationship between MOL and INA and I realised that the two things were connected," said Jezic.
He said that Sanader was not angry with him when at a European Football League match in Milan he told him that he wanted to walk out of their deal.
They left Milan for Zurich aboard a Dioki plane, and in Zurich they met with Sanader's brother Flavio whom the former PM allegedly told: "Robi wants to walk out, so could you please take over arranging the matter."
"I concluded from that that he (Flavio) was supposed to do the remaining part of the job," Jezic said, adding that soon afterwards he received from Cyprus a document terminating the contract which read that neither party had any financial claims towards one another any longer.
Jezic also told the court that the money he had allegedly received on Sanader's behalf was still in the bank account of his company.
"The money is still in that account. When I receive instructions to whom and when it should be returned, I will do it," Jezic said, adding that he had used the money in question for business purposes and that he had not informed anyone about it, including Sanader.
"My duty was to make that amount always available," Jezic said.
