Zagreb County Court on Monday acquitted former managers of the state motorway company HAC Mario Crnjak and Jurica Prskalo, who were indicted for taking part in a scheme to siphon money from the company in the late 2000s via the defunct Fimi Media marketing agency for the benefit of a secret slush fund controlled by the HDZ party at the time when it was led by former prime minister Ivo Sanader.

Crnjak and Prskalo were accused of signing contracts on behalf of HAC with the Fimi Media agency at artificially inflated prices from late 2005 to 2009 at the request of then-prime minister Sanader and then-HDZ treasurer Mladen Barisic, knowing that the money would eventually end up with HDZ.

Prskalo was also accused of siphoning money when he headed the smaller state-owned Rijeka-Zagreb Motorway company, with prosecutors alleging he defrauded both companies of 7.7 million kuna (€1 million).

Judge Zejlka Skomersic ruld that prosecutors failed to produce “a single piece of evidence” proving their claims.

Crnjak and Prskalo were indicted alongside Josip Sapunar, a former member of the HAC management board, who pleaded guilty before the trial and was convicted after entering a plea bargain.

Sapunar also pleaded guilty in the Remorker corruption case, in which the Supreme Court last September upheld the acquittal of Prskalo and former head of HAC, Mario Lovrincevic. The Supreme Court, however, quashed the acquittal of former HDZ minister Bozidar Kalmeta, who will be retried, including for commissioning a promotional video from Fimi Media.

In what local media calls “the main Fimi Media case,” the Supreme Court in October 2021 partially upheld a verdict which fined the HDZ 3.5 million kuna for siphoning money from state institutions and companies. Sanader’s sentence was reduced from eight to seven years’ imprisonment and he was ordered to return the stolen money.

Barisic was sentenced to two years and ten months. The HDZ former treasurer Branka Pavosevic was also convicted of corruption, as was Fimi Media owner Nevenka Jurak, who died in the meantime. Only Ratko Macek, the then-spokesman for the government and the HDZ, was acquitted of all charges.

In this case, the Zagreb County Court also ordered the state-owned Croatian Postal Bank to pay back 11.89 million kuna made in illegal gains into the state budget.

(€1 = 7.53 kuna)