Criminal prosecution against Hernadi is not a ‘resolved matter’

The INA-MOL case is gaining increasing proportions. The State Attorney’s Office announced that Croatia has never transferred the criminal prosecution against the CEO of MOL, Zsolt Hernadi, to the competent authority of Hungary.

In this regard, they added, there has never been an investigation against Hernadi in Hungary. Therefore, there is no question that this is a “resolved matter,” as claimed in Hungary.

We present the statement of the State Attorney’s Office in full:

For the accurate information of the public, and considering the inaccurate information published in the media, we respond that the Republic of Croatia has never transferred the criminal prosecution against the suspect Z. T. H. to the competent authority of Hungary, and since the competent authority of Hungary has never conducted an investigation against Z. T. H., there is no question that it would be a “resolved matter.” (October 3, 2013.)

Namely, the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime issued an order for the investigation of the criminal offense of receiving and giving bribes committed in the territory of the Republic of Croatia on June 10, 2011, in the case against I. S. and others (including Z. T. H.).

During the conduct of this investigative procedure, requests were sent to the competent judicial authority of Hungary for the questioning of the suspect Z. T. H. and for the delivery of summons.

Thus, the Republic of Croatia has never transferred the criminal prosecution against the suspect Z. T. H. to Hungary, but after issuing the order for conducting the investigation, it repeatedly unsuccessfully sought international legal assistance from the Hungarian authorities, which was not granted.

In the process of obtaining international legal assistance during the investigative procedure, the State Attorney’s Office of the Republic of Croatia informed the competent judicial authority of Hungary and provided copies of certain documentation necessary for questioning the suspect based on the requests.

Hungarian judicial authorities, acting on these requests, refused on two occasions to question Z. T. H. as a suspect, and on two more occasions refused to deliver him a summons for his questioning in the Republic of Croatia, each time justifying this by protecting Hungarian national interests.

Regarding the claims of the Hungarian competent authorities about how they conducted an investigation in Hungary based on the documentation provided from the Republic of Croatia, the State Attorney’s Office has only the information stated in the response and the attached documentation which rejected the request. From this data, we determined that in Hungary, after receiving the request for international legal assistance for questioning the suspect Z. H. T., they initiated a procedure whose subject was to assess whether the “actions committed constitute a criminal offense” or not, and during that procedure, Z. T. H. was questioned as a witness.

Thus, based on the responses provided to us by the Hungarian side, it follows that no investigation was conducted against Z. T. H. in which he would have the status of a suspect, which calls into question the claims that appropriate criminal proceedings have been initiated or conducted against him in Hungary.

Therefore, in terms of Article 50 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the practice of the Court of the European Union, it cannot be considered that Z. T. H. has been definitively convicted or definitively acquitted in Hungary for the same criminal offense for which USKOK is conducting an investigation against him in the Republic of Croatia, because in Hungary, the procedure against the suspect Z. T. H. for that criminal offense has not been initiated nor conducted.

Consequently, there are no obstacles to conducting proceedings against Z. T. H. as claimed in certain writings.