ZAGREB, January 22, 2020 – Zagreb mayor Milan Bandić appeared before County Court on Wednesday morning and pleaded not guilty to irregularities relating to waste management.
Also accused are the owner of the CIOS waste management company, Petar Pripuz, and another 15 defendants. They all pleaded not guilty to charges that the City had awarded the job of waste disposal to CIOS without a tender.
The trial was watched by civil society activists, including Dario Juričan, who recently ran in the presidential campaign and publicly criticised Bandić for corruption.
A group of activists met Bandić outside the courthouse, booing at him and calling him a thief. They brought him a gift for prison: a toothbrush, a towel with his name, a bar of soap, a roll of toilet paper and a bag of mandarins.
Activist Gordana Pasanec of the Siget civil society group said the group wanted the court to finally pass a final and fair judgment. “It’s impossible that he is never found guilty. It is disgraceful that witness testimonies and indictments are constantly changed because of somebody’s interests,” she said, adding that citizens would show today that they were fed up with bribery and corruption.
The anti-corruption investigating agency USKOK submitted the indictment against the mayor of Zagreb and his associates and business partners to the court back in December 2015. Seven counts of the indictment were upheld by the court in March 2018 and three were returned to the prosecution for completion.
In late March 2019 the Zagreb County Court suspended proceedings against Bandić in the part of the indictment that charged him with defrauding the budget by not paying taxes on donations he had received after the 2010 presidential elections.
At the end of October 2019, the court upheld the part of the indictment against Bandić and Pripuz relating to waste management.
More news about Milan Bandić can be found in the Politics section.
