Ivo Sanader (pictured here), Croatia’s former Prime Minister, appeared in court today to hear a confirmation of his indictment, a necessary step for the judges to proceed and formally start his trial on corruption charges. He is accused of abuse of office when he was deputy foreign minister in 1995.
Mr. Sanader allegedly received around $646,000 in bribes from the Austrian bank Hypo Alpe Adria, in exchange for facilitating a loan deal between the Croatian government and the bank, and also for facilitating its access to the Croatian financial market.
He has also been indicted under the accusation of taking bribes from the Hungarian energy group MOL, in return for enabling the company to obtain a dominant position in the Croatian oil and gas company INA. Mr. Sanader is the target of other four investigations on corruption.
For the full story on reuters.com, please click here. The picture of Mr. Sanader shown above is from nzz.ch and is credited to Reuters.
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