Kalmeta: I am not guilty of siphoning public money

Former HDZ Minister of Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Božidar Kalmeta on Monday at the Zagreb County Court, together with his co-defendants who had not previously reached a settlement with the prosecution, rejected the charges of siphoning millions from public road companies, as well as that he caused damage to the ministry he headed by ordering a promotional film “Traffic Renaissance of Croatia” for more than 600 thousand kuna.

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While Uskok in its opening statement said it would prove that the defendants organized a group for siphoning public money, Kalmeta’s lawyer Krešimir Vilajtović asserted that there is not a single piece of evidence that Kalmeta participated in the crimes he is accused of.

Vilajtović stated that there are no “witnesses or co-defendants who would directly incriminate Kalmeta” except for the ‘repentant’ Josip Sapunar who has multiple proceedings and agreements with the State Attorney’s Office.

Sapunar is one of three defendants who has already been sentenced to a year in prison, which can be replaced by community service. Prior to the settlement, Sapunar, like the accused Igor Premilovac and Ivan Berket, admitted all the charges brought by Uskok, which claims that Kalmeta connected people from his ministry, Hrvatske ceste (HC) and Hrvatske autoceste (HAC) and that he and his associates shared over 15 million kuna and 850,000 euros from public companies for road maintenance and construction.

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Along with Kalmeta, his closest associates from the ministry are also included in the indictment – former state secretary and chairman of the HAC Supervisory Board Zdravko Livaković and state secretary Milivoj Mikulić who was also in the management of HAC.

Sapunar has also testified in the investigation against Livaković and Mukulić as the persons to whom he carried money that HAC subcontractors deposited into the Austrian account of Premilovac’s Czech company Remorker.

The indictment also mentions former heads of HAC and Hrvatske ceste (HC) Stjepko Boban, construction company leaders Damir Kezele, Miroslav Bunić, and Petar Pečin, as well as people from HAC and HC Jurica Prskalo, Mario Lovrinčević, and Sandro Vukelić who did not attend the trial but agreed to start without him.

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In the meantime, Kalmeta has also been accused of causing damage to the ministry he headed by ordering the promotional film “Traffic Renaissance of Croatia” from the marketing agency Fimi media, which is being prosecuted for siphoning money from state institutions and companies, for more than 600 thousand kuna.

In a separate case, Fimi media, former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and HDZ as the first party accused of corruption are on the defendants’ bench, while the other branch of the Remorker affair has spread to the Croatian Chamber of Commerce and its long-time leader Nadan Vidišević.