The Zagreb Municipal Court has sentenced Boris Stitic, 36, to two years and four months in prison pending appeal for attempting to extort money from three members of the national Covid-19 crisis management team, Jutarnji List daily said on Thursday.

On 30 September 2020, Stitic had sent e-mails to head of Zagreb’s main infectious diseases hospital, Alemka Markotic, head of Croatia’s public health institute, Krunoslav Capak, and Health Minister, Vili Beros, in which he said “they would die unless they paid (him) €100,000 in the Monero cryptocurrency,” state agency Hina reported, citing Jutarnji List.

Stitic, who holds dual Slovenian and Croatian citizenship, is a male nurse with three prior convictions for fraud.

Although he had claimed he was innocent at the start of the trial, he eventually confessed, “justifying his actions with Covid restrictions and the inability to see his child, who lives with the mother in Slovenia, during the pandemic,” Hina said, citing Jutarnji List.

The court also ordered him to pay over 10,000 kuna (€1,335) in court costs. He has been released from detention, in which he had been since October 2020. His 12-month detention will be counted towards the final sentence of 28 months in prison.

Hina did not report any information on the investigation that led to his arrest.

“The court did not find any mitigating circumstances, finding as aggravating that Stitic attempted to extort money from persons engaged in the fight against the pandemic and committing the offences in an especially odious manner, without any empathy for others, subjecting the victims to stress by making death threats against them and their families,” Hina said, citing Jutarnji List.

(€1 = 7.49 kuna)