ZAGREB, October 3, 2018 – Zagreb Municipal Court has dismissed an indictment against Croatia and Real Madrid midfielder Luka Modrić, who was charged with perjury in a trial against former Dinamo football club director Zdravko Mamić. The court ruling, made last Friday, may be appealed.
Modrić’s lawyer Laura Valković told Hina on Tuesday that she had not been notified of the ruling yet. “If media claims are correct, the court most probably accepted the arguments from our deposition to the indictment in which we expounded why the indictment should be rejected,” the lawyer said.
According to unofficial information, the indictment was rejected as premature because the court believes that Modrić cannot be tried for perjury before a final verdict in the case of Mamić and his co-defendants is delivered.
Mamić, his brother Zoran, former Dinamo director Damir Vrbanović and tax agent Milan Pernar were charged with defrauding the club of almost 116 million kuna and the state budget of 12.2 million kuna in unpaid taxes. Mamić was sentenced in June to six and a half years in prison pending appeal but he fled to Bosnia and Herzegovina before his verdict was announced. Since along with Croatian citizenship he also holds the citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian authorities have refused to extradite him to Croatia.
The Osijek prosecutorial authorities allege that despite being warned that perjury is a criminal offence, Modrić gave evidence as a witness at the Mamić trial, his testimony being different from what he had said in his earlier deposition.
At the trial, Modrić spoke about financial details of his 2008 transfer from Dinamo to Tottenham.
Modrić said that he had a deal with Mamić to pay the club 50 per cent of the transfer and that the 2008 transfer was worth between 21 million euro and 23 million euro.
