"I wish to repudiate any insinuations by USKOK (the national anti-corruption office) and (witness) Robert Jezic that I took a bribe from MOL. I didn't ask for or accept any bribe", Sanader said in Zagreb County Court after denying charges in that court on Monday of war profiteering and accepting a commission from the Austria Hypo Bank.

Sanader went on to give an exhaustive explanation of the background to relations between the two oil companies and the government's role in which state ownership in the company fell from 75% in 2003 to 44% in 2009.

Sanader said that the job of amending shareholders' agreements due to new circumstances was delegated to then ministers Damir Polancec, Ivan Suker, Marina Matulović Dropulic and later Jadranka Kosor.

Sanader added that at not one stage did he ever give Polancec any orders in which direction negotiations should head and that he had in fact suggested that "we retain our influence in INA", adding that all decisions were made at cabinet meetings but were also discussed by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) presidency and the coalition partners of the HDZ which was the ruling party at the time.

Sanader claims that the amended agreements with MOL in the end were not detrimental as claimed by USKOK and have proven to have benefited the company which is doing better business now then when the state ran the company.

He recalled that based on the INA Privatisation Act the state cannot have more than 25 plus one share in INA after it joins the EU and that a parliamentary committee too had confirmed that the contracts were beneficial to Croatia.

Responding to charges that prior to handing INA over to the Hungarians he wanted to divest the unprofitable gas operations from INA, Sanader said that his only intention was to ensure Croatia's energy independence so that it would not be a "collateral victim" of international conflicts related to gas supplies. He added that the purchase of the Okoli gas storage facilities was a good move too as Croatia can now control its gas reserves.

He claimed that the testimony given by the prosecution's chief witness Robert Jezic that he had accepted 5 million euro (of a total of 10 million) from MOL on behalf of Sanader was false and that USKOK had simply accepted the testimony without verifying the witness' claims. Sanader repeated that the money Jezic was referring to had nothing to do with MOL but was tied to a deal between Jezic and Russian oil magnate Mikhail Gutseriev.

He added that he could refute all of Jezic's claims and would do so in his closing statement.

He objected that USKOK had not taken account of the fact that the Hungarian prosecution had "concluded that the Croatian premier was not paid any bribe".

Once again today, similar to yesterday, Sanader did not wish to answer any questions by the prosecution.