Vidošević was also found guilty of buying sculptures with HGK money and an excavator with money of the Kraš company.
Since he has been sentenced to more than five years, he will immediately go to prison.
Vidošević’s closest assistant, Zdenka Peternel, was sentenced to two years pending appeal, also for siphoning money from the HGK via fictitious contracts, while former HGK head of accounting Josipa Miladinov and her deputy Jasna Mikić were acquitted, also pending appeal.
Before the end of the trial in this case, dubbed Remorker, the USKOK anti-corruption office dropped the charges against Jadranka Ivičić, former Kraš Supervisory Board deputy chair, for procuring the excavator for a property Vidošević has in Gorski Kotar.
Four other defendants accused of siphoning money from the HGK plea bargained and were sentenced to community service.
One of them was Igor Premilovac, who was the first to speak out about using his Czech company Remorker to charge fictitious invoices and return the washed money to Croatia for a commission.
The second one was Davor Komerički, a marketing expert who connected Vidošević to the money-siphoning ring in the HGK.
The remaining two were Vesna Rodić, Vidošević’s real estate advisor, and Jasna Mrakovčić Grubić, who admitted to siphoning money from the HGK together with Vidošević by falsifying the purchase of paintings.
The Remorker case also led to the Hrvatske Ceste road operator. The main suspect was Božidar Kalmeta, a former HDZ minister and a former Zadar mayor. He was acquitted pending appeal in September 2019.
USKOK filed the indictment against Vidošević and eight others in the Remorker case in July 2015, moving for the seizure of HRK 33.4 million, estimated to be the disproportion between Vidošević’s income and assets.
A subsequent expert evaluation determined that his 26 properties and 444 works of art, totalling HRK 22.4 million, had been acquired legally, leaving only HRK 9.2 million in doubt.
Consequently, in December 2020, USKOK dropped a motion to seize assets from Vidošević and his family after it was established that the disproportion between his income and expenses was less than the illegal gains he was charged with.
(€1 = HRK 7.5)
