Former Deputy Prime Minister Damir Polancec is expected to start serving on 15 October a ten-month prison sentence he was given for paying lawyer Petar Miletic HRK 500,000 in state funds for an unnecessary expert study, according to a decision from the Varazdin County Court.
After being notified in late July that he must report to prison on August 13, Polancec requested the judge in charge that the sentence be postponed for three months because his health had deteriorated. In the meantime, the judge requested additional medical records, and after that he decided to shift the beginning of Polancec's imprisonment for two months.
The Varazdin Court's spokesman Igor Pavlic told the press on Friday, that thus Polancec's request was partially granted. Therefore, Polancec can appeal against this ruling.
It is unknown to which correctional facility Polancec will be sent but he is likely to be incarcerated in a low-security facility and to be allowed to go to work and spend weekends out.
In October 2010, the Zagreb County Court sentenced him to 15 months' imprisonment for commissioning the study from Miletic, but the Supreme Court reduced the sentence by five months, while Miletic's sentence was reduced from 12 to eight months' imprisonment.
Polancec hopes the Constitutional Court will grant his complaint against the lawfulness of the sentence.
During the trial, Polancec denied all the charges, claiming he had been working for the benefit of the state and at the urging of former PM Ivo Sanader, who he said had requested that an "important political issue be solved with as little money as possible." Polancec said he had paid Miletic HRK 500,000 in compensation for earnings he had lost when disgruntled Serb workers of the Borovo company in Vukovar had dropped lawsuits filed because they had not been paid severance packages and because their years of service during the Serbian occupation of the eastern Croatian town had not been included.
In late 2011, Polancec was given, according to the Supreme Court's decision, the suspended sentence of one year in prison with four years' probation for financial wrongdoing relating to the installation of floodlights at the football ground in his native village of Djelekovci, northern Croatia.
Polancec and several other defendants are standing trial for allegations that they defrauded the Koprivinica-based Podravka food company of HRK 400 million.
