The former head of Sisak-Moslavina County, Marina Lovric-Merzel (SDP), was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to seven years in prison on Tuesday. She has the right to appeal, but since her sentence is longer than five years, she will have to go straight to prison from the courtroom.

Three other defendants were also found guilty – Silvijo Kobescak, former president of the supervisory board of the Ceste Sisak roads company; Bernard Popec, who sold the county a building for emergency medical services above the market price, and Dalibor Rozankovic, Lovric-Merzel’s nephew who laundered the money Lovric-Merzel received in bribes by purchasing a holiday apartment.

The indictment also included businessman Zeljko Zuzic, who made a deal with the prosecution, after admitting that he had given Lovric-Merzel €100,000 in bribes, and was given a suspended sentence of one year’s imprisonment with four years’ probation, and the former director of the Hrvatske Sume forest management company, Zvonko Rozic, who was sentenced to eight months in prison with two years’ probation after reaching a deal with the USKOK anti-corruption office.

Lovric-Merzel was charged with receiving €100,000 in bribes from Zuzic in return for selling the Ceste Sisak company to his company. She concealed this transaction by purchasing a holiday apartment and registering it in her nephew’s name.

According to the indictment, contrary to the decision by the county to build a building housing emergency medical services at another location, Lovric-Merzel did all in her power to ensure that the county bought Popec’s property at a considerably higher price, as a result of which his company made undue gain of about 4 million kuna while the county was defrauded of 5.6 million kuna.

Lovric-Merzel was also charged with commissioning unnecessary advisory services, incurring excessive entertainment expenses and concluding fictitious project contracts.

Lovric-Merzel and her co-defendants were arrested in April 2014 and four months later she resigned as Sisak-Moslavina County Prefect. The trial opened in June 2018, but had to start over three months later after a judge withdrew from the case.