The defence team for former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader has said that in the event that it is proven that an offence was committed involving Sanader, accused by the Croatian prosecutorial authorities of taking kickbacks in a loan arrangement between Croatia and the Austrian Hypo bank in the mid-1990s, that crime was not in any connection with the war and the prosecution wrongly applies the law on no statute of limitations for war profiteering in ownership transformation and privatisation.
After a pre-trial hearing held before the Zagreb County Court on Friday when the trial's presiding judge Ivan Turudic set the beginning of the trial for 28 October, Sanader's lawyer Cedo Prodanovic said that the defence team would challenge the prosecution's allegations about war profiteering allegedly committed by Sanader when he was Deputy Foreign Minister.
Prodanovic said that Sanader had denied all allegations at today's hearing and that the court had granted the requests by the office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) and that it would later consider requests by the defence team.
Sanader's lawyer Goran Suic said today that the court had granted Sanader's request to allow Tyrolean Parliament Speaker Herwig van Staa of the Austrian People's Party to visit him in the detention centre in Remetinec on Sunday. This Austrian politician also visited Sanader in January during his detention in extradition custody in Salzburg.
The commencement of the trial of Sanader accused of taking kickbacks for a loan which the Hypo bank granted to Croatia in the mid-1990s is scheduled for 28 October.
In the Hypo case Sanader is accused of war profiteering and abuse of office when he was Deputy Foreign Minister and allegedly received HRK 3.6 million in kickbacks for the loan Austrian Hypo bank had approved to Croatia in the mid-1990s.
