The Supreme Court has upheld the acquittal of former Croatian Privatisation Fund (HFP) vice presidents Josip Matanovic and Robert Pesa of taking and giving bribes in a case involving a brickyard in Nin.
The two men were acquitted by Zagreb's County Court pending appeal last September in a retrial for several counts from a case dubbed Big Maestro. The Court found that nothing, not even anti-corruption office USKOK's phone-tapping, had established that Pesa had in any way asked or agreed to take a EUR 200,000 bribe to favour a foreign investor who planned to build a tourist complex on the brickyard's land.
The Supreme Court dismissed USKOK's appeal as unfounded on January 18.
Matanovic was convicted to 11 years' imprisonment for other wrongdoing in Big Maestro, one of the first bigger anti-corruption cases in Croatia, and was deprived of the EUR 250,000 and HRK 125,500 he had illegally gained.
In the first trial, Pesa was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
