Uskok left the hearing for the trial of Lovrić Merzel

The preparatory hearing for the trial of former SDP county head Marina Lovrić Merzel was postponed again on Tuesday, after Uskok left the courtroom because Judge Ivan Turudić once again, as he did the day before, rejected their request for recusal.

Uskok representatives stated after the hearing that they would ask the Chief State Attorney to submit a request for the protection of legality, which will be decided by the Supreme Court.

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Judge Turudić, on the other hand, believes that there are no grounds for recusal. He stated that Uskok’s behavior is contrary to the Constitution and the law and that the prosecutors do not have the authority to leave the courtroom without the approval of the presiding judge.

– They did not receive approval and thus showed that they do not respect the Croatian court. If the defendant in the case did that, he would be punished, said Turudić.

Continuation of the hearing at the end of April

The lawyer for the former county head, Jadranka Sloković, said that she expects the continuation of the preparatory hearing on April 26 as decided.

Uskok’s prosecutors also left the preparatory hearing on Monday after Judge Turudić again rejected the settlement between Uskok and entrepreneur Željko Žužić, who, as a co-defendant of the former county head, admitted to giving Marina Lovrić Merzel one hundred thousand euros in bribes, although the Supreme Court concluded in December that Turudić could not have rejected the settlement earlier.

When Turudić first rejected the settlement for a conditional sentence of one year, Uskok submitted a request for the protection of legality, which the highest judicial authority accepted at the end of last year. With that decision, the Supreme Court stated that courts should not intervene in the content of settlements between defendants and the prosecution and the circumstances of the case, but only control their legality.

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Uskok charges Lovrić Merzel that she, along with her co-defendants, is responsible for a series of illegalities – from accepting bribes and money laundering to unjustified payments to consultants, overpaying for the ambulance building, and spending public money on parties.

Along with this former local power broker, who spent more than five months in pre-trial detention after her arrest, Žužić is also accused along with other actors in this corruption story – the president of the Supervisory Board of Cesta Sisak, Silvijo Kobešćak, Bernard Popec, who sold the building for the ambulance to the county, her nephew Dalibor Rožanković, and the manager at Croatian Forests, Zvonko Rožić.