The former Prime Minister has gone from lying in a hospital to strolling through shopping malls in just a few days.
On Tuesday, former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader was hospitalised. According to his lawyer Jadranka Sloković, Sanader was admitted to a hospital due to enlarged lymph nodes. Because of his illness, he did not appear at the Zagreb County Court where his second trial for the Fimi Media affair was supposed to be continued. Medical documentation on Sanader’s health status was submitted to the court by his second lawyer Čedo Prodanović and the four scheduled days of trial have been postponed for November, reports Index.hr on October 22, 2017.
This is not the first time that Sanader’s various trials have been delayed for health reasons. Last year, roughly at this time of the year, the former Prime Minister had to undergo surgery.
However, on Saturday, just days after missing the court hearings, the former Prime Minister and HDZ president was seen and photographed strolling through the Kaptol Centre shopping mall.
The Fimi Media is the most significant corruption affair of Croatian politics. Through the Fimi Media marketing company, owned by Nevenka Jurak, millions of kunas were allegedly taken from the state budget and public companies on Sanader’s direct orders. The affair has still not received a final verdict because the Supreme Court has abolished verdicts against Sanader, HDZ and all other defendants and returned the case to the court for a retrial.
Sanader and his former party HDZ are charged with taking out more than 70 million kuna from state institutions and companies. In addition to Sanader and HDZ as a political party, among accused are former HDZ treasurer Mladen Barišić, party accountant Branka Pavošević, Fimi Media’s owner Nevenka Jurak, and former spokesman for Sanader’s government and HDZ Ratko Maček.
The retrial began in June last year at the Zagreb County Court after the Supreme Court annulled the first-instance verdict by which Sanader was sentenced to nine years in prison. He also had to return the illegally acquired 15.27 million kuna. HDZ was fined with five million kuna, and it also had to hand over illegally acquired 24.2 million kuna. Barišić, who confessed the crimes, was sentenced to three years in prison, Branka Pavošević to one and a half years, and Nevenka Jurak to two years in prison. Maček is the only one who was granted a suspended prison sentence, and he was the only one who did not appeal the initial verdict.
Translated from Index.hr.
