Former Prime Minister and Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leader Ivo Sanader said on Monday that all accusations against him regarding the sale of electricity at a discount price to the Sibenik-based TLM metal company and the "Aluminijum" plant in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, were "a politically-motivated persecution", adding that decisions about cheaper electricity for those companies were regular decisions made not only by his cabinet but also by the previous governments and even by the governments in "Socialist Croatia".
"Those were decisions of my government and of all preceding governments, even those in the time of Socialist Croatia, to help certain economic subjects," Sanader said leaving the Zagreb County Court where he had given a deposition about the allegations that the state-run power company HEP had been defrauded of some HRK 650 million through the delivery of cheaper electricity to TLM and Aluminij.
"We aided the shipbuilding industry directly through state aid from the budget, some received assistance through cheaper electricity. In the cases of TLM and Aluminij there is a political aspect which must not be ignored," Sanader told reporters, adding that such decisions were based in the political programme with which he had won elections twice, in 2003 and in 2007.
"When the electorate decided to give their confidence to us in 2003 and 2007 they knew that we wanted Aluminij Mostar to remain the leading economic enterprise of the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As regards TLM, the decision was made to salvage jobs. What would we have gained if 1,200 or 1,400 workers had been fired from TLM? How much would it have affected HEP and also the entire state?," Sanader said.
His lawyer Jadranka Slokovic said that this was the fifth case against the former premier with "the same pattern from the prosecutors" who she said "criminalised political decisions of a government".
Accusing the prosecutors of criminalising political decisions made by former PM Sanader and his government, the lawyer said that "now we have entered a stage of political persecution."
Slokovic said she hoped the court would finally drop charges instead of opting for an indictment as in the previous cases against her client.
In the HEP-TLM case the Zagreb County Prosecutor's Office has already issued an indictment against Ivan Mravak, former management board chairman of the HEP power company, in the case involving the sale of electricity below the market price to TLM and Aluminij, in which HEP was allegedly defrauded of HRK 650 million. Media are speculating that Sanader might also be indicted for this crime.
The other accused are Mravak's former advisor, retired general Ivan Kapular, and former HEP Supervisory Board member Zdenko Juricic. Mravak is accused of abusing office on the orders of former Prime Minister Sanader, who is still under investigation in the case. Before filing the indictment, the Prosecutor's Office dropped charges against former Deputy PM Damir Polancec and former TLM director Ivan Kostan.
