The Zagreb County Court has decided that former prime minister and Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) president Ivo Sanader will have to spend a total of 18 years and eight months behind bars following the verdicts in three corruption cases, Fimi Media, Planinska and Ina - MOL.

The state news platform Hina reported found out at the court that the decision, which can be appealed, was made at the end of December, and it was sent to Sanader and his lawyers recently.

Defence claims the decision is unfounded and announces an appeal

Sanader’s lawyer, Cedo Prodanovic, did not want to comment on the decision, which established a combined sentence for three final verdicts. He only said that the decision was absolutely unfounded and announced an appeal.

The defence has been insisting for years that for all the verdicts, given that they are about similar crimes, Sanader cannot receive a combined sentence of more than 15 years in prison.

So far, the former prime minister has spent about seven and a half years behind bars. Early release in the Croatian prison system can be requested already after half of a sentence has been served, and it is usually granted after two thirds of a sentence.

After several detentions and releases, Sanader has been in prison continuously since April 2019, when the Supreme Court raised his sentence for corruption in the Planinska case to six years. In that case, the former owner of a meat company and HDZ MP Stjepan Fiolic admitted that he brought the former prime minister ten million kuna and one million euros in commission after he bought an office building from the state below the market price.

Sanader’s corruption scandals in public focus for over 12 years

In mid-October 2021, the highest court partially upheld a verdict from the repeated proceedings in the Fimi media case, according to which the HDZ must pay 3.5 million kuna (€465,000) in fines for syphoning money from state institutions and companies, while Sanader’s sentence was reduced from eight to seven years in prison.

At the end of October 2021, the Supreme Court upheld the first-instance verdict by which Sanader was sentenced to six years for accepting a bribe from the head of the Hungarian company MOL, Zsolt Hernadi, while Hernadi, who was tried in absentia, was sentenced to two years in prison.

Last October in a re-trial, Sanader was acquitted of charges of war profiteering in the Hypo case, for which he was convicted twice in earlier proceedings. This ruling is not final.

Another acquittal of Sanader, in which he and entrepreneur Robert Jezic were acquitted of selling cheap electricity to Jezic’s company Dioki to the detriment of the HEP power board, was upheld by the highest court in mid-November 2021.