The new state attorney general, Ivan Turudic, elected by a parliamentary majority in February, will assume office from Zlata Hrvoj Sipek on Monday and then hold a press conference at which he is expected to discuss his first moves.

Turudic has already announced that one of his priorities will be to find within the State Attorney’s Office a new director of its USKOK anti-corruption office. Zeljka Mostecak has been USKOK’s acting director since the resignation of director Vanja Marusic in April last year.

This week, the judicial council of the High Criminal Court dismissed a complaint by the court’s president Zeljko Horvatovic, who, with the consent of the president of the Supreme Court, requested that proceedings be initiated against Turudic for violating the Code of Judicial Ethics.

The reason cited was Turudic’s contradictory statements about his meetings with former FC Dinamo head Zdravko Mamic while Turudic was a judge at the Zagreb County Court and Mamic was under investigation. The statements were made as the media carried transcripts of Turudic’s friendly correspondence with Josipa Rimac, a former state secretary and mayor of Knin accused of corruption.

Due to those text messages and the statements about his meetings with Mamic, a convicted fugitive from Croatian justice, many others, mostly from the opposition, but President Zoran Milanovic also, accused Turudic of lying before the relevant parliamentary committee and in TV interviews.

Milanovic also accused Turudic of “staging” the shooting of his car to get protection, to which Turudic responded that the president “put a target on my back” and that he did not want to be a subject of Milanovic’s “election ambitions.”

Turudic’s election sparked protests from the left and divided the right

When Turudic was sworn in in parliament on 13 March, a day before parliament’s dissolution, opposition politicians from the left and part of the right criticised Turudic’s election, saying that no institution would be independent in the future.

Among the critics was the current coalition partner of the HDZ, the leader of the Homeland Movement, Ivan Penava, then in the opposition, who said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic autocratically decided that Turudic should be the next state attorney general, without a broader consensus.

The left-liberal opposition organised a protest in Zagreb on 17 February because of Turudic’s appointment. His statement that he was not sure the European Public Prosecutor’s Office should have been established in Croatia also sparked strong reactions, with the government assuring that his views would not bring the work of the EPPO in Croatia into question.

Turudic’s supporters reiterated that he was the best of the four candidates who applied for the position of state attorney general, that his meetings with Mamic were already known, and that he passed the strictest security check and was appointed High Criminal Court judge.

Turudic was appointed state attorney general for four years. He and the other three candidates who applied for the job were interviewed by the parliamentary Judiciary Committee and a government commission that included Plenkovic and seven ministers. The government then proposed that parliament appoint Turudic, assessing his programme as the best.

Long-time judge with numerous high-profile verdicts

Turudic graduated from the Zagreb Faculty of Law. In 1991, he became a judge at the Virovitica Municipal Court and later its president. He was a volunteer in the Homeland War and became an assistant justice minister in 1999.

Since 2000, Turudic worked as a judge at the Zagreb County Court, becoming its president in 2012. In early 2021, he became a judge at the High Criminal Court.

During his time at the Zagreb County Court, Turudic delivered non-final guilty verdicts against former prime minister Ivo Sanader for taking bribes and abuse of office as well as non-final sentences against former deputy prime minister Damir Polancec and former ambassador Neven Jurica.

Turudic also presided over trials against entrepreneur Hrvoje Petrac for the kidnapping of General Vladimir Zagorec’s son and against Mladen Slogar for the murder of Ivana Hodak, the daughter of former minister Ljerka Mintas Hodak and lawyer Zvonimir Hodak.