During a two-hour-long sentencing hearing at the Zagreb Court on Tuesday morning, a panel of judges presided by Ivan Turudic found former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader guilty of war profiteering in which he was involved as Deputy Foreign Minister in the mid-1990s when he received a commission of seven million Austrian schillings (HRK 3.6 million) from Hypo Alpe Adria Bank for arranging a loan for the Croatian Foreign Ministry and for ensuring favourable conditions for the entry of the Austrian bank to the Croatian market.
According to the explanation of the verdict read out by Judge Turudic, the court dismissed the claim by the defence team and Sanader that he had not received kickbacks from Hypo bank or claims that Sanader was not the chief negotiator in the talks on the loan arrangement or claims that Croatia was not damaged in that case.
The court found that Sanader had committed a crime of war profiteering because he had taken advantage of the state of war in Croatia at the time to secure unlawful gain for himself.
"Considering the office you held, you were aware of all circumstances. The war provided fertile ground for the realisation of your intentions," the judge said, noting that after living in Austria for years and being very fluent in German, Sanader was an ideal negotiator for that purpose.
According to the judge, the accused indirectly confirmed that he was the chief negotiator with the Austrian party by admitting that he had threatened to terminate the negotiations in the event of a too high bank fee.
The court established that Sanader was unsuccessfully trying to downplay the importance of a statement by the former chief of the Austrian bank, Wolfgang Kulterer, who said that Sanader had promised him a more favourable position for Hypo bank on the Croatian market.
It is beyond doubt that Hypo bank saw its enormous expansion in Croatia in 1994 and 1995, according to the verdict.
Judge Turudic rebuffed Sanader's argument that the commission was paid to Croatian emigrant Eugen Laxa, because witnesses Guenther Striedinger and Franz Hasslinger, former Hypo bank executives, testified that it was Sanader who received the commission.
Kulterer ordered Striedinger to make a note of the meeting at which the commission was agreed in 1994 when it was agreed that Sanader would be paid a five per cent commission.
The court argued why Striedinger would write down false facts in 1994 only to "falsely charge Sanader in 2012".
Judge Turudic went on to say that the witness Hasslinger had no reason either to testify falsely against the defendant.
However, the court did not establish how the agreed commission had been paid to Sanader in the meantime.
"Obviously, four different persons received (instalments of) the commission because the witnesses described the man believed to be Laxa differently," Turudic said in the section of the verdict dealing with the Hypo bank case.
He later gave an explanation of the guilty verdict in the INA-MOL case.
