ZAGREB, June 5, 2018 – The Office of the Chief State Prosecutor (DORH) on Tuesday resolutely dismissed claims by Zdravko Mamić that it had exerted pressure on the court and members of the panel of judges conducting a trial against that former Dinamo football club executive vice-president charged with fraud, and announced that it would ask the police to investigate the matter and check the authenticity of screen shots of a phone conversation which Mamić presented at a news conference on Monday.
The former football boss has accused former Chief State Prosecutor Dinko Cvitan and the anti-corruption office USKOK of pressuring the Osijek County Court into delivering a sentencing verdict in the case in which Mamić, his brother Zoran and former Dinamo director Damir Vrbanović and tax official Milan Pernar are charged with siphoning around 116 million kuna from the club and defrauding the state budget of 12.2 million kuna in unpaid taxes.
The Osijek court is expected to announce its non-final verdict on Wednesday.
In a statement issued today, DORH said that no pressure had been exerted on judges or any other participants in the proceedings in that or any other case in which DORH was a party to the proceedings, and that it would request a police investigation to check the credibility of Mamić’s claims.
Mamic said on Monday that he was in possession of screen shots of a phone conversation of June 3 which allegedly involved Cvitan and in which he repeatedly asked an unnamed member of the panel of judges in the Mamić trial to deliver a guilty verdict, despite his interlocutor insisting that there was no evidence for such a verdict.
Some of the screen shots refer to an alleged conversation between Chief State Prosecutor Dražen Jelinić with Cvitan and acting USKOK chief Tamara Laptoš.
Mamić’s attorney Veljko Miljević on Monday handed in to Jelenić the screen shots of the alleged communication.
DORH has dismissed claims that the screen shots of the alleged conversation between Jelenić and Cvitan and Laptoš are authentic. “We deeply believe that the investigation will confirm that,” DORH said.
