The Supreme Court began a hearing in the INA-MOL case on Tuesday and  is expected to hand down a final judgment in this case in which former Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader and Hungarian energy group MOL CEO Zsolt Hernadi were sentenced by Zagreb County Court to six and two years respectively.

Both the defence and the prosecution appealed against the county court’s ruling, with the former insisting on the systematic violation of the defendants’ rights, whereas the prosecution demanded harsher sentences.

In late 2019, the ex-prime minister Sanader and Hungarian energy group MOL CEO Hernadi were found guilty of taking and giving a bribe in the INA-MOL case, for which Sanader was sentenced to six and Hernadi, who was tried in absentia, to two years’ imprisonment pending appeal.

Explaining the retrial verdict on 30 December 2019, Zagreb County Court judge Maja Štampar Stipić said Sanader had arranged with Hernadi to give MOL controlling rights in its Croatian peer INA in exchange for €10 million. In doing so, Sanader used his position and authority as prime minister to make it seem that it was necessary to divest INA’s gas business and change the shareholders’ agreement, the judge added.

Under the verdict delivered by Zagreb County Court in late 2019,  a company owned by Robert Jezic, who testified that half of the bribe to Sanader was paid through him, must repay €5 million to the state.

The retrial in the INA-MOL case was requested by the Constitutional Court, which quashed the first sentence against Sanader. At that time, Hernadi was not accused yet and Hungary dismissed numerous requests that he be questioned, claiming a Hungarian court had acquitted him of the same charges in a private suit.

In the first trial, Sanader was sentenced to eight and a half years’ imprisonment. Aside from the MOL bribe, he also stood trial for war profiteering, i.e. for taking a commission from the Hypo bank which gave Croatia a loan during the Homeland War. He was sentenced on that charge, during a retrial, to two and a half years’ imprisonment but the time he spent in custody was counted against the sentence so he did not go to prison.