The Ivica Todorić latest… Although the High Court in London refused the former Agrokor boss’ appeal and confirmed that it was indeed now time for him to return to Croatia, there is another possible remedy to his situation: a request for appeal to the Supreme Court. It ain’t over til the fat lady sings, as they say in Ole’ Blighty.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 26th of October, 2018, despite being very much under the watchful eye of the Metropolitan police, Ivica Todorić is still at relative liberty in the British capital. After the High Court refused his appeal and confirmed his extradition to Croatia, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve come to the very end of the line. Let us not pretend that the chances of him managing to slither out of this situation are great, they aren’t, the possibilities of success in him submitting an appeal to the Supreme Court are extremely narrow. Such a move could only really ”take off” if his rights have been somehow violated, for example, as N1 reports.
Jadranka Sloković, Ivica Todorić’s attorney, says she doesn’t know whether or not Todorić will decide to attempt to go down that route.
“That’s not my decision,” she stated simply. It appears also that nobody is quite sure when Todorić will have to return to Croatia at all.
“I don’t know exactly when those deadlines are, and according to what I’ve heard from his English lawyers, it can take about three to four weeks, a maximum of four weeks. Even if he was to go along with this appeal and it ends up getting rejected, it’s about four weeks,” noted Sloković.
Paperwork and red tape will be, as usual, the main hold up should there be any delays in the upcoming process. The transfer from London, where Todorić has been living for about a year, back to Zagreb, needs to be very carefully arranged by the police in Zagreb and in London, as well dealing with who will accompany him on what will likely be a very regular flight from England to Croatia.
“That’s all their thing, and as you know, these processes aren’t public so we can’t talk about them,” stated Davor Božinović, the current Croatian Minister of the Interior.
Back in Croatia in Remetinec (Zagreb prison), a decision on the appeal has been being awaited, and a witness who is apparently currently not in Croatia should be questioned.
Todorić’s defense thinks that that one witness in question poses no reason for Todorić to be held in custody, but the Zagreb County State Attorney’s Office is sticking to its guns. The real question is does it actually make any sense.
“I don’t think that it’s likely to be for this reason alone, even the court in London has allowed him (Todorić) to remain at liberty with precautionary measures in place,” said Aleksandar Maršavelski, a professor of law at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb.
While the Zagreb State Attorney’s Office continues investigating, it has, at least currently, revealed absolutely nothing about its plans regarding this issue.
In addition to the questioning of various witnesses, an ongoing accounting audit should be carried out within the scope of the investigation – this will apparently be carried out by a Polish company. Involved attorneys are not particularly pleased with this because they believe, among other things, that this will slow the process down even more and increase costs. They aren’t sure it will even be completed on time.
Fran Olujić, Ante Todorić’s lawyer stated that he has serious doubts that such an examination can be carried out and completed in the time given, which is a mere three months.
The Agrokor case which rocked Croatia has been being led against Todorić and numerous others who once made up the gigantic company’s former management body for an entire year.
Follow the latest news about the former Agrokor supremo here.
