Former Assistant Defence Minister and former General Vladimir Zagorec was acquitted by Zagreb County Court on Thursday, pending appeal, during a retrial for the 1997 unlawful renovation of a holiday house owned by former Zagreb City Assembly vice president Antun Sporer.

The proceedings in this case, including the first trial and retrials, have taken 17 years.

Matko Kakarigi, a former head of the Defence Ministry department for construction and environmental protection, was also today cleared of the charges.

A previous retrial against Sporer was separated in January 2017 due to the accused’s serious health condition.

At the first trial, retired general Kakarigi and his assistant Juraj Vojkovic were given a 10 month suspended sentence with a three-year probation term, also pending appeal.

In 2009, Zagorec was given seven years for abuse of office and for stealing the jewels, worth USD 5 million, from a defence ministry safe, when his term as assistant minister in 2000 had expired. Zagorec was released from prison in the summer of 2013 after he served two thirds of his sentence. He had been behind the bars since October 2008 after being extradited from Austria to Zagreb.

He has been stripped of his general’s rank.