Former chairman of the managing board of the state-owned HEP power company, Ivan Mravak, and three other executives of this public company, on Tuesday pleaded not guilty of having fictitiously employed Rade Buljubasic, and enabling this Croatian returnee from Australia to illegally make more than HRK 600,000 and of defrauding HEP of about HRK 760,000.
According to the indictment read out at the beginning of their trial at the Zagreb County Court, Mravak and the other three are indicted for fictitiously employing Buljubasic in HEP, who received a salary from May 2006 to August 2009 without coming to work in the company, and bought a flat from the company at a reduced price. According to the media reports at the time relevant for the indictment Buljubasic actually worked at the former ruling party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).
Mravak, Zeljko Doric, Mladen Beljo and Aleksandar Bernik today denied charges. Suspect Antun Crnic, who had been charged with the same counts, before the commencement of the trial.
During the trial a score of witnesses are to be questioned, including Rade Buljubasic.
The next hearings are set for mid-June.
