A former head of the Zagreb City Department for Health, Zvonimir Sostar, was on Monday found guilty and sentenced, pending appeal, to four years in prison for having defrauded the city budget, with his associates, of €5.06 million through fictitious deals on the cleaning of sport halls' ventilation systems.

Along with Sostar, the Zagreb County Court also sentenced, to six and a half years, Davor Ljubic, director of a company specialising in dry ice cleaning, and Mirta Loncar, Sostar’s associate, who was given a conditional sentence of one year and will not go to prison if she does not commit a new offence in the next five years.

If the verdict is upheld, Sostar will be fined approximately one million euros, while Ljubic will be fined around €4 million.

Sostar was arrested and placed in custody back in 2016. The prosecution alleged that the illegal activities had happened in the period between 2006 and 2013, when Sostar allegedly fixed contracts for the dry ice cleaning of numerous sports halls in Zagreb.

The prosecution alleges that many of those deals were unnecessary or that work under them was never performed but was paid for, with Sostar taking bribes in return.