"My lawyers in Zagreb have still not been given access to the file, so I don't know the details of what I'm being accused of. Until that is the case, I certainly won't agree to a simplified extradition procedure," Sanader said in a second part of his interview with Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper.

The newspaper ran the first part of the interview on Friday and the second part on Sunday.

Sanader resolutely denied that he had attempted to escape to avoid arrest in Croatia. "That's nonsense. I had only returned to Croatia from the United States a few days earlier," he said, adding that he had had several business meetings to attend and that that morning "there was still nothing" against him.

"When I arrived abroad, I learned that I had been stripped of my parliamentary immunity, so I notified my lawyers that I would be coming back as soon as I finished the meetings. The next day I learned about the arrest warrant. I immediately left a notification at several places saying that I was on my way back to Croatia, and my lawyers were supposed to meet me after the Karawanken tunnel," the former PM said.

Sander said he was reading a lot in his cell, mentioning books by Tony Blair and Stephen Hawking, and that he was thinking of how he was going to "expose the conspiracy" against him.

Sanader said that his prosecution was politically motivated. He said that Chief Public Prosecutor Mladen Bajic "depends on nomination by Parliament where the government of Mrs Kosor has a majority."

Sanader said he knew Bajic from their youth days when they both lived in Split. "He comes from a communist family and I from a Catholic one. When we are at home, we go to the same cafe, to the same restaurant," Sanader said and went on to explain how the Chief Public Prosecutor had changed.

"The accusations that keep cropping up that I put a lot of money in my pocket as a commission for my intermediary services in obtaining a loan from Hypo Alpe-Adria bank, are ancient. They first appeared in 2001 when I wasn't even Prime Minister. The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office investigated the matter and found that the allegations by a woman, who was hoping to derive personal benefit from it, were unfounded. The same story has cropped up every few years since then. I denied the story again shortly before the New Year 2010, and the Chief Public Prosecutor sent me a text message saying I did it well and that the woman lied again. I still have that text message. A few days after I was expelled from the party and after my conversation with the Prime Minister, the Chief Public Prosecutor had changed. He told a US Embassy official that he was going to launch an investigation against Sanader over that case," the former PM said, vowing that he would prove his innocence.

"There are notarised statements by a witness and we will present them (as evidence)," Sanader said.