The Croatian Justice Ministry expects Hungary to comply with a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), according to which the Hungarian authorities should have extradited MOL energy group CEO Zsolt Hernadi to Croatia under a European arrest warrant, Justice Minister Drazen Bosnjakovic said on Thursday.

CJEU ruled on Wednesday that Hungary should not have ignored the European arrest warrant for Hernadi based only on a decision of its Public Prosecutor’s Office to close a criminal investigation in which Hernadi was interviewed only as a witness.

The decision confirms the legal position of Croatia, Bosnjakovic told reporters.

“The decision says very clearly the European arrest warrant should have been executed and, based on the Court’s decision, we expect member states to execute the warrant,” he said.

CJEU is authorised to interpret EU law and whenever there is doubt as to how to act, our courts will refer to it, he added.

The European arrest warrant for Hernadi was issued after Croatia’s anti-corruption office, Uskok, accused him of offering a bribe of €10 million to the then Prime Minister of Croatia Ivo Sanader in 2009 to conclude the negotiations in which MOL would get management rights of Croatia’s Ina energy company.

Hungary opened an investigation into whether a criminal offence had been committed, but has only interviewed Hernadi as a witness in the case.

In December 2015, Ivo Sanader’s corruption trial was combined with Hernadi’s case.

At the end of 2017, Croatia’s Supreme Court quashed a decision reached in May 2017 whereby Zagreb 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 until September.

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