The trial for the 2008 murder of Nacional weekly co-owner Ivo Pukanic and his associate Niko Franjic continued at the Zagreb County Court on Monday with the testimony of the key witness Tomislav Marjanovic.
Granting a request from the prosecution, the Supreme Court decided that Marjanovic should testify behind closed doors.
Defence counsel for the indictees in the trial had opposed the prosecution's request that Marjanovic testify behind closed doors, saying that the key witness had already made statements for the press on several occasions.
They said that Marjanovic had almost entirely retold his statement for the court in the media and revealed his own identity, thus removing the only reason why he should testify being closed doors.
Marjanovic took the witness stand today shortly after 9 am and he was giving his testimony for an hour and a half. After a break, he will answer questions from the prosecution, defence counsel, and the panel of judges. He is expected to continue his testimony on Tuesday.
According to unofficial sources, in his testimony Marjanovic gave an account of Pukanic's murder that was the same as the one he had given during the investigation and in his statement for the media.
Marjanovic's statement, given during the pre-trial investigation, is one of the prosecution's most solid pieces of evidence backing the indictment against Pukanic's killers. Marjanovic took part in preparations for the murder, but he later entered a plea bargain with the Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) and decided to testify against the other indictees.
Marjanovic told the media that Robert and Luka Matanic, Amir Mafalani, Zeljko Milovanovic, Bojan Guduric and Slobodan Djurovic had conspired to kill Pukanic, as well as two other people from Zagreb.
Djurovic was allegedly a link with Sreten Jococ aka Joca Amsterdam who allegedly paid 1.5 million euros to have Pukanic killed.
Jocic, Milovanovic and Milenko Kuzmanovic are standing trial for Pukanic's murder in Belgrade.
In late March this year, the key witness Tomislav Marjanovic was sentenced pending appeal to three and a half years in prison for inciting to murder in Novi Zagreb in 2006.
Several witnesses and indictees in the trial have described Marjanovic as a pathological liar, criminal and heroin addict.
