Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Wednesday that he did not "consider it logical" for the former Dinamo Zagreb football manager Zoran Mamic, whose prison sentence in a corruption case was upheld earlier this month, to be able to cross the country's border, after Mamic visited Bosnia, where his brother and co-defendant, Zdravko Mamic, is a fugitive. Bozinovic added that police "acted in line with rules regulating the work of border police."

“The police acted the only way they could, and as to whether the court could and should have issued some order regarding Mamic, courts are the third branch of government. Personally I don’t consider it logical, but that’s not up to police because in this case police had no reason to act differently than they did, complying with rules that regulate the work of border police,” Bozinovic said in a news conference of the national Covid-19 task force, as he is also the leader of that particular body..

Zoran Mamic on Tuesday left the country for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and returned to Croatia on Wednesday morning, after, he said, he visited his brother Zdravko whom “he had not seen for seven months.”

“I traveled there while I still had the opportunity, until the procedure is finished,” he said, adding that it was “difficult for him to say” if he would again travel to Bosnia.

In an interview with N1 Zoran Mamic noted that he “had to take care of his family” before starting to serve his sentence.

Even though together with his brother Zdravko he was given a final verdict for siphoning money from Dinamo, Zoran Mamic travelled to the neighboring country without any problems because he still has not received a call from the Zagreb County Court judge in charge of prison sentences.

The Supreme Court last week upheld an earlier ruling by the Osijek County Court sentencing Zdravko Mamic to six and a half years in prison for siphoning some 116 million kuna from Dinamo. The court reduced the prison sentence handed to his brother Zoran from four years and 11 months to four years and eight months, while former tax official Milan Pernar’s sentence was reduced from four years and two months to three years and two months.

The Supreme Court upheld the first-instance judgement for former Dinamo director Damir Vrbanovic sentencing him to three years in prison.

Zdravko Mamic, who holds dual Croatian and Bosnian citizenship, fled to Bosnia and Herzegovina in June 2018, the day before the Osijek County Court announced the verdict sentencing him to six and a half years in prison.

Zdravko, who is reportedly living as a free man around the pilgrim town of Medjugorje said that he would be willing to serve his sentence only in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Zoran said that he is ready to start serving his sentence as soon as possible, presumably in Croatia.

Justice Ministry said earlier that if Zdravko Mamic did not return to Croatia after his sentence became final, and if Bosnia and Herzegovina continues refusing to extradite him, the Ministry could launch a procedure to have him serve his sentence in Bosnia.