Former Knin mayor Josipa Rimac and eight other defendants, including former EU Funds minister Gabrijela Zalac, have been indicted by the USKOK anti-corruption office for giving bribes and abuse of office and authority to favour an investor from Knin for the construction of a wind farm.

According to USKOK, Rimac received over 1 million kuna from them.

Without specifying the identities of the indictees, USKOK reported on Friday that, after an investigation, it filed an indictment at the Zagreb County Court against nine Croatian citizens.

The indictment accuses the first defendant Rimac of using her influence as mayor of Knin, a Member of Parliament and state secretary in the Ministry of Public Administration to arrange, from early 2017 to May 2020, a significant profit for an investor in the construction of the wind farm, whose business in the area of Ervenik and Knin is actually run by the second and third defendant in this case.

In return, the second defendant paid Rimac a reward of at least 40,000 kuna per month, and he also gave her other rewards, paying her a total of 1,175 174 kuna.

The third defendant promised her that he would engage an insurance broker of her choice in the wind farm insurance business, with whom she agreed that part of his commission of € 92,000 would be paid to her.

USKOK also stated that Rimac, with Gabrijela Zalac, then Minister of Regional Development and EU Funds and a member of the Supervisory Board of the Croatian Bank of Reconstruction and Development (HBOR), also curried favour with the bank’s representatives.

Rimac is also accused of having enabled permits for the wind farm despite the damage caused to the local forests amounting to more than HRK 600,000.

She is also accused of asking HBOR, together with Zalac, to have a loan of €130,000 approved for the investor, to reduce the required loan insurance instruments, and to ensure the drafting of a letter of intent for the needs of that company, in which HBOR would falsely state to the supplier of wind turbines that the loan would be approved.

According to the indictment, Rimac arranged for the investor in the wind farm to make HRK 3.6 million in illegal gains from electricity delivered.

(€1 = 7.5 kuna)