Mourning sentenced to two years

As announced earlier, former minister, former director of the Croatian Central Financing and Contracting Agency (SAFU) and two owners of companies, together with their societies, were charged with the criminal offenses of abuse of office and powers and trading influence.

During 2017, the former minister launched a public procurement procedure for the information system and took action to provide entrepreneur and its companies with a privileged position. She has increased the estimated value of the procurement and decided to carry out the negotiating procurement procedure without the publication of a public call. Then the companies of this entrepreneur were invited to submit their offer, and eventually a contract was awarded at an unrealistically high price of EUR 1.73 million.

The investigation found that the former minister and owners of companies continued to take action with the aim of assigning a contract to their societies, despite the fact that the procedure was canceled for violating the Public Procurement Act.

The contract was eventually concluded, and the owners of the companies received a large sum of money, which was then transferred to their accounts or raised in cash. The Union budget is estimated to have been damaged by at least one million euros and the state budget of the Republic of Croatia for almost 300,000 euros.

The former minister was sentenced to two years in prison.

The verdict is the result of the agreement of the parties, since it has recognized the guilt for its accusations; And before signing the Agreement, she paid 200, .000 euros in the name of a partial compensation, with the right of a creditor to claim the compensation of other damage according to the principle of solidarity responsibility.

Criminal proceedings against the other three defendants-former SAFA director and two owners of the defendants of the companies, as well as against these two societies-is still ongoing.

EPPO is an independent public prosecutor’s office. He is responsible for investigation, prosecution and indictment of criminal offenses against the Financial Interest of the Union.