While at the helm of the party, Ivo Sanader decided on the use of the slush fund which, according to the claims by the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK), was filled with money siphoned from state agencies and companies via the privately-owned Fimi Media marketing agency.

Upon Sanader's departure, HDZ Secretary-General Branko Bacic reportedly asked Pavosevic to compile a list of persons who got the money from the said fund.

"Bacic then said he needed the list for Jadranka Kosor," according to Pavosevic's deposition read out in the courtroom. At the beginning of today's hearing, the accused Pavosevic said she would exercise her right to remain silent.

According to her, the money from the slush fund was paid out to a series of HDZ officials and employees in the party as well as to people, the party's nonmembers who cooperated with the HDZ such as the former head of the Office for National Security, Mladen Lackovic.

The highest monthly fee of HRK 10,000 was paid, reportedly on Sanader's orders, to Darko Milinovic, a former Health Minister and the current HDZ Deputy President.

"Milinovic used to phone me to ask me 'Have you got that for me?'. I was familiar with what that was about and informed him when it would arrive," according to Pavosevic's deposition which Judge Ivana Calic read out.

A former minister, Bianca Matkovic, allegedly received eight thousand kuna every month. Ratko Macek, Sanader's spokesman, and Martina Banic, an HDZ official were given each HRK 2,000. Several government employees were paid between HRK 1,500 and HRK 2,000 and members of the HDZ Youth were also provided with such rewards, and Pavosevic told investigators that she had never been told which criteria for such payments were applied.

She corroborated her statements in the USKOK with a series of payment slips, which she said had kept out of fear that she would be accused and considered responsible "for everything that has happened".

"I did everything exclusively on the orders of my superiors, president Sanader, Mladen Barisic and the (HDZ) secretaries-general Branko Vukelic and Ivan Jarnjak," Pavosevic said in her deposition.

She stated that the slush fund had been used for financing election campaigns, the purchase of a bullet-proof BMW vehicle for Sanader as well as for the equipment of HDZ offices. In this context she mentioned Gordan Jandrokovic, a former foreign minister, as having been in charge of the equipment of the HDZ branch offices in Bjelovar.

According to Pavosevic's depositions, she mainly took over the money from the former HDZ treasurer, Mladen Barisic who had admitted to having filled the party's slush fund with money which was counted in the customs administration offices, as Barisic used to be the chief of the customs administration.

While giving her deposition to the investigators, Pavosevic recalled having counted in a hurry and put together two million euros as Barisic needed to urgently take the money out of the customs administration. She said she remembered that day precisely as that was the day when journalist Ivo Pukanic was assassinated.

She recalled businessmen such as Miho Zrnic Marinovic and the Zuzul brothers whom she described as HDZ donors having visited the HDZ headquarters. They were in the meantime put under investigation on suspicion of murky dealings.

The reading of Pavosevic's depositions will resume on 7 May.

Pavosevic, Barisic, the owner of the Fimi Media marketing agency Nevenka Jurak, and the legal representative of Fimi Media as a legal entity, Marica Ivankovic, pleaded guilty to the charge that they had siphoned some 70 million kuna (9.3 million euros) from state companies and institutions into the HDZ's slush fund via Fimi Media, after which this case was named, while Sanader, Macek and the legal representative of the HDZ denied the charge, saying that the slush fund had been created without the knowledge of the party's bodies.