Tomislav Saucha, former prime minister's chief of staff charged with falsifying travel allowance claims, was on Wednesday sentenced pending appeal to three years, while Sandra Zeljko, his former secretary, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

They were also banned from performing official duties, and they will have to return the money syphoned via falsified travel allowance claims to the state.

The verdict was handed down by a Zagreb County Court panel of judges chaired by Sanja Mazalin. Zeljko was not present.

Saucha and Zeljko have been pleading guilty since the start of the trial in the “travel allowance case”.

The USKOK anti-corruption office claimed that Zeljko had continued falsifying travel allowance claims even after Saucha’s departure from the office of the then prime minister Zoran Milanovic, estimating the total damage at about one million kuna.

The investigation was first launched only against Saucha, then an MP of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and was later extended to Zeljko, who was initially the main witness in the case.

After his release from pre-trial detention in February 2017, Saucha left the SDP and supported the ruling majority in the former parliament as a member of the Croatian People’s Party (HNS).