The trial of former Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Damir Polancec and lawyer Petar Miletic of Vukovar will commence on 17 September, it was decided at a hearing before the Zagreb County Court on Friday.
Polancec declined to address the press after the hearing.
His attorney Anto Nobilo told reporters outside the courtroom that all evidence submitted by the defence and the prosecution were admitted.
Asked if former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader would appear at the trial, attorney Nobilo said neither the defence nor the prosecution had suggested that Sanader should take the witness stand.
"Nobody will call Sanader to the stand as he was not involved," Nobilo said.
Under the indictment issued by the anti-corrutpion agency USKOK, in 2008 Polancec agreed with Miletic the making of a legal study entitled "Convalidation of years of service and pensions acquired in the territory of the Republic of Croatia under the administration and mandate of the United Nations in the period from 3 December 1991 to 15 January 1998."
Miletic made the study which the Ministry of Economy, Labour and Enterprise never used, but for which it paid half a million kuna.
USKOK alleges that the former minister commissioned the study and paid for it even though he knew that it was not necessary since the issue in question had already been solved at talks between government bodies and Serb workers of the Borovo footwear factory from Vukovar. Polancec took part in those talks, while Miletic, according to the press, represented a group of Borovo workers and was paid by Borovo HRK 1.3 million for his services in January 2009.
Polancec's attorney Nobilo said earlier that he would move that Vojislav Stanimirovic, leader of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), who also participated in the talks, testify in the trial. Nobilo said that negotiations with Borovo employees were a "first-class political problem" and that Polancec and Miletic deserved credit for its settlement.
Apart from this case, USKOK has indicted Polancec also for illegally spending HRK 230,000 to instal lighting on a football field in his hometown of Djelekovec near Koprivnica.
Also under way are two more investigations against the former economy minister - one in a case concerning the food company Podravka and the other in a case concerning the power supplier HEP.
