ZAGREB, November 17, 2018 – The Interpol Executive Committee met in Dubai on Saturday and ruled in favour of Croatia, allowing the renewal of the international arrest warrant for the CEO of the Hungarian energy company MOL, Zsolt Hernadi, the Croatian Interior Ministry said in a press release.
The Ministry recalled that in November 2016, Croatia’s request to INTERPOL to extend a Red Notice for MOL’s CEO Hernadi was outvoted at an Interpol general assembly. As EU member states, Croatia and Hungary were urged to resolve their dispute before a relevant EU body after which they can submit another request to the Committee to consider issuing the arrest warrant for Hernadi.
After a European Court in Luxembourg announced in July this year that Hungary should not have ignored the European arrest warrant issued for Hernadi, Croatian police have once again requested Interpol to extend a Red Notice for the MOL’s CEO,
The European arrest warrant for Hernadi, which some states have ignored, was first issued after Croatia’s USKOK anti-corruption office accused him of giving former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader 10 million euro in bribes so that MOL could have management rights in Croatian oil company INA.
In December 2015, Sanader’s corruption trial was combined with Hernadi’s case, but the latter’s defence asked that the case file be translated into Hungarian. They also claimed that Hernadi had been acquitted of bribing Sanader in a private suit in Hungary.
At the end of 2017, Croatia’s Supreme Court quashed a decision of 30 May 2017 whereby Zagreb’s County Court suspended the Sanader-Hernadi trial while ruling on appeals filed by USKOK and Hernadi’s defence. Last week, the County Court adjourned a preliminary hearing in the proceedings.
For more on the INA-MOL case, which has been burdening the relations between Croatia and Hungary, click here.
