Roncevic was sentenced to four years and Bacic to two years pending appeal. County Court Judges' Chamber Chairperson Jasna Smiljanic also ordered that the two must pay 10.2 million kuna with interest - the amount of damages that the duo caused the National Budget.

Roncevic and Bacic were charged by the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime (USKOK) of fraudulent procurement of military trucks. The two bought 39 Iveco trucks from the company Eurokamioni for 34.4 million kuna - a sum 10.2 million higher than offered by the company MAN Importer in response to the public tender issued and later withdrawn by the Ministry of Defense. This is why the prosecution demanded that the two compensate the National Budget for damages caused.

USKOK claims that in the public tender, MAN vehicles were suggested by the Croatian Armed Forces HQ and were very highly graded during military testing.

The accused and their defense, however, maintained throughout the trial that they did not show Iveco any favour since the MAN vehicles supposedly did not adhere to NATO standards and did not carry the demanded after mass.

Court experts found during the trial that the more expensive Iveco trucks, however, did not meet any of the five requirements set in in the initial public tender, while the MAN trucks met at least three.

In addition to denying guilt, Rončević claimed throughout the trial that he was the victim of political persecution committed by former Croatian President Stjepan Mesic. Demanding an acquittal in his closing statement, Roncevic's attorney reiterated how former Minister of Justice Ivo Simonovic stated how opening an investigation against Rončević was a requirement for the opening of EU accession negotiations Chapter 23 on judiciary and fundamental rights.

Truckgate, the disputed procurement of military trucks, was opened by former President Mesic in 2005 during the pre-election campaign. The affair was often referred to by the media and opposition politicians as a textbook case of corruption, while the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), from whose ranks Rončević stems, claimed that the affair was entirely made-up. In mid-2009 a parliamentary investigating committee - consisting mostly of HDZ members and without any opposition politicians - concluded that there were no indications of illegal or corrupt elements in the procurement, further claiming that Roncevic had been slandered and the public misinformed.

Roncevic headed the Ministry of Defense from 2003 to early 2008 when he was named to the Ministry of Interior Affairs, a position from which he was quickly dismissed following the shooting murder of legal apprentice Ivana Hodak in October 2008, the Croatian News Agency, HINA, reports.

Following his dismissal, Roncevic reactivated his mandate in Croatian Parliament where he, as an MP for the ruling HDZ, voted in favour of amendments to the Criminal Code in which so-called "state attorney investigations" replaced court investigations. One of the first cases to be investigated as such was Truckgate. Roncevic would later say that he would never forgive himself for voting the amendments in.