The Mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandic, and his co-defendants have been acquitted in their trial on charges of providing preferable treatment to an ultra-conservative group at the expense of the city budget in 2013.

The ruling was announced by Zagreb County Court Judge Zdravko Majerovic on Friday.

The indictment alleged that Bandic, his assistant Ivica Lovric, and the CEO of the Zagreb Markets public company, Zdenka Palac, allowed the group called In the Name of the Family (UIO) to use city-owned stalls to set up points for collecting signatures for a petition to call for a referendum on banning same-sex-marriage in May 2013.

The indictment charged Bandic and his co-defendants for letting the group use the city-owned stalls free of charge, which caused damage to the city budget of at least 308,000 kuna (€41,500).

The court found that providing sponsorship to a group as well as methods to finance such support was within the remit of Bandic’s discretionary rights as city mayor, while anti-graft police Uskok claimed that the way he helped the group was entirely non-transparent.

Meanwhile, Bandic is on trial in another case, in which he and another 10 city officials and company CEOs are charged with defrauding the municipal budget of at least 25 million kuna (€3.3 million) on several counts of abuse of power and embezzlement. The trial started last week, with all of the accused pleading not guilty to all charges.

(€1 = 7.42 kuna)

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