A panel of judges on Monday upheld an Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) indictment against former Deputy Prime Minister Damir Polancec and seven others accused in a case codenamed Spice of defrauding the Podravka food company of at least HRK 400 million.
Panel chairman Ivan Turudic said that by upholding the indictment, the court also dismissed all objections by the defence and the defendants about unlawful collection of evidence.
Turudic said the panel was of the opinion that the indictment was written fully in accordance with the law.
The defence had asked the court to throw out more than 40,000 pages of the case file referring to an expert book-keeping and financial examination, claiming it was unlawful.
The attorneys also claimed that USKOK had violated the defendants' right to have their attorneys present at witness questioning, and that before Polancec became a suspect in this case, USKOK had no authority to investigate alleged unlawful activities in Podravka.
However, the panel of judges assigned to the case ruled that there had been nothing unlawful in the investigation.
Apart from Polancec, the other accused in the Spice case are former Podravka executives Darko Marinac, Zdravko Sestak, Josip Pavlovic and Sasa Romac; the owner and director of the SMS company, Srdjan Mladinic; a co-owner of the Fima Grupa company, Milan Horvat; and attorney Zoran Markovic.
Apart from conspiracy to commit crimes, they are also charged with abuse of office, aiding and abetting abuse of office, and illegal intermediation.
