The local press wrote on Wednesday, the Zagreb District Court overturned the 2018 decision of Zsolt Hernádi, Chairman and CEO of Mol Plc. Regarding his imprisonment.
If this ruling becomes final, the European arrest warrant against Zollt Hernady will be canceled and will also be removed from INTERPOL’s rotating list.
The books of the newspaper Gotarni are not the daily Croatian.
The Croatian Public Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime (USKOK) can appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
Last week, Laura Falkovi, a Croatian lawyer for Zolt Hernady, asked the court to revoke his client’s detention order, which the committee issued in the Mol-INA case on December 3, 2018. The lawyer argued that the measures violated the human rights of Mol’s president and CEO.
At the end of last year, the same court issued a conviction against former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, accusing him of bribing Hernadi Zholt in his absence. Sanader was sentenced in the first instance to 6 years imprisonment and Hernad to 2 years.
The USKOK condemned Zsolt Hernádi in 2013 because, according to her, the head of Mol delivered more than ten million euros in bribes to the then Croatian Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader, between 2008 and 2009.
Mol Plc and Hernadi both denied the allegations, stating that they had not corrupted any politicians or took bribes to obtain the institute’s management rights.
The Hungarian Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered an investigation of an unknown perpetrator in July 2011 on suspicion of bribery for breaching international relations duty.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office found that no crime had been committed in favor of Mall and by its administration, and therefore terminated the investigation in the absence of a crime.
In 2013, the Hungarian court refused to implement the European arrest warrant issued by the Croatian Public Prosecutor’s Office against Zollt Hernade, since in his opinion the order was issued in the same case, which had previously been investigated by the Hungarian Prosecutor’s Office and the proceedings were terminated in the absence of a crime. .
Zolt Hernady
Photo: MTI / Zoltán Balogh
In July 2015, the Croatian Constitutional Court overturned the ruling in the criminal case of Evo Sanader, which also ruled that the former prime minister had accepted bribes in relation to the INA.
The president and CEO of Mall was removed from INTERPOL’s periodic list in October 2016 after the organization refused a request from the Croatian state to renew the arrest warrant issued against it.
In the case, Croatia referred the matter to the Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), which in its December 2016 decision rejected all of Croatia’s claims relating to bribery, corporate governance and the alleged breach of the 2003 shareholder agreement.
However, Croatia decided to continue the criminal proceedings in Croatia and sent the European arrest warrant against Zsolt Hernádi directly to the Hungarian judiciary, and in August 2018 it again requested Interpol to renew the previously issued circular against Mol’s president and CEO. The Croatian police justified its request on the basis that the European Court of Justice ruled in July that judicial authorities in EU member states are required to rule on all European arrest warrants sent to them. During that, the person concerned was questioned as a witness.
On 23 August 2018, the Hungarian capital court again rejected the European arrest warrant. The court justified its decision on the basis of that
There is a risk of violating the right to a fair trial if the accused is transferred and an impartial adjudication of the case is not guaranteed.
The Zagreb court joined the two lawsuits in December 2015 on the grounds that the two lawsuits in the INA-Mol case were related and based on the same evidence, and that both cases were at the same stage, thus creating the conditions for joining the lawsuit. .
