Croatia’s former premier Ivo Sanader was acquitted of war profiteering by taking a bribe from an Austrian bank during the country’s 1990s war, a court said on Thursday.
Sanader, who led Croatia into NATO and to the doorstep of the European Union in the 2000s, is currently in jail serving an 18-year sentence for corruption.
In a 2022 re-trial, a Zagreb court found Sanader not guilty of war profiteering for accepting nearly 500,000 euros ($518,000) in bribes from Austria’s Hypo Group Alpe Adria bank.
At the time, during the country’s independence war in mid-1990s, he was deputy foreign minister.
Prosecutors appealed the ruling to the High Criminal Court but on Thursday the original not guilty verdict was upheld and the appeal described as “unfounded”.
“The defendant received the disputed commission from the bank’s funds,” it said in a statement .
Thus it is a “matter of non-material damage that any state official can commit… regardless of whether it is committed in time of war or peace”, it added.
The court, whose ruling is final, said that the statute of limitations for the abuse of office offence, which Sanader has committed, expired in 2022.
Sanader, 71, was the conservative HDZ party’s prime minister from 2003 to 2009 when he suddenly quit without giving a clear explanation for the move.
The once powerful politician has faced a string of corruption cases and trials since he left office.
After several detentions and releases from prison, Sanader remains in jail since 2019.
In 2022, he was jailed for 18 years.
Sanader was the highest Croatian official to be charged with corruption since the former Yugoslav republic proclaimed independence in 1991.
Tackling corruption was key for Croatia’s successful bid to join the EU in 2013.