Croatian President Ivo Josipovic has said that it must be clarified whether former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader abused his office and powers and received illegal kickbacks of 10 million euros from the MOL management's president in return for the takeover of the management rights in Croatia's leading oil and gas company INA.
President Josipovic said in an interview with the Media Servis commercial broadcaster on Tuesday afternoon that this story must be clarified.
The Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) today confirmed that an investigation had been launched into Sanader for abuse of office and bribe-taking. According to unofficial reports, Sanader is suspected of receiving a EUR 10 million bribe from the Board chairman of the Hungarian oil company MOL, Zsolt Hernadi, in exchange for management rights in INA. Apart from Sanader and Hernadi, USKOK's investigation order includes former Deputy PM Damir Polancec, who is not suspected of taking bribes but helping Sanader abuse office.
As for this case, Josipovic said that he did not want to prejudge outcomes of the investigation.
Asked whether it was possible that another members of the Sanader cabinet had known nothing about how the negotiations had been conducted with Hungary's MOL, Josipovic said that it could be hardly imagined.
Josipovic does not think that this scandal will affect the Croatian-Hungarian relations.
"This should not happen. Both Croatia and Hungary are law-based countries and would like to see that crimes are detected and prosecuted. Now it is on the judiciary to act," he said.
