After five years of silence, the ‘Spice Boys’ are performing again

After five years of silence, the group ‘Spice Boys’ is returning to the stage. In October, it marks five years since the County Court in Zagreb issued rulings for the actors of the Spice affair, which involved managers, entrepreneurs, and politicians from Podravka.

It would not be the first time that due to the slowness of the judiciary in Croatia, some case goes into statute of limitations, but given that this is perhaps the largest economic-political criminal affair in Croatia, it is hard to believe that the Supreme Court would miss the opportunity to rule in such a case.

Thus, Judge Željko Pajalić, spokesperson for the Supreme Court, confirmed to us that ‘the reporting judge in the “Spice/Podravka” case, which is currently at that court in the appeal process, is taking into account the onset of the statute of limitations and that the decision, in any case, will be made before its onset.’ As we unofficially learn, the ‘Spice Boys’ are expected to gather again on September 13 for a court hearing that will last until September 15, after which the Supreme Court should issue a second-instance ruling, either dismissing or confirming the rulings made by the County Court in Zagreb in 2016.

If you happen to find yourself in the Podvelebit area and want to spend the night or have lunch somewhere, do not be surprised if you see a familiar face as the head chef. Damir Polančec from Koprivnica has become ‘Barba Damir’, a newly minted hotelier who transformed a former workers’ resort into a modest two-star hotel Barba in 2017, where he occasionally cooks for guests. Polančec also has a travel agency Niba Tours registered in Koprivnica, through which he brings guests to the hotel, as well as retirees for a day trip to swim in Crikvenica and Krk. He is also the owner of the local Koprivnica portal Drava.info, which follows daily events in the community and features a large advertisement for Polančec’s hotel and agency on its homepage, along with ads from Podravka.  He is also the owner of Radio Drave, but as we learn, he intends to sell his media business. Of all the ‘Spice Boys’, the only one who has been convicted twice before is Polančec. First in the Borovo affair, for which he served a nine-month prison sentence, and then for the Reflectors affair in NK Osvita in Đelekovac. The Spice affair is the third process for the newly minted tourism worker who, although still living in Koprivnica, escapes into the role of ‘Barba’ as soon as it warms up.

Darko Marinac, since he was arrested in 2009 and released, has retired and lives at two addresses, in Zagreb and in Jastrebarsko, where he spends time with his grandchildren. He is actually the only one facing a nearly certain prison sentence of two years and the return of 65 million kuna. In the meantime, while the verdict does not become final, Marinac lives the life of a well-off retiree who, as we learned, also helps in the family business in Slovakia.

‘Spice Boys’ have not been in much contact over the years, except through individual and joint lawyers. Some of them still live under the belief that what the ‘business-illiterate’ public calls an affair and crime was a masterful solution for Podravka, which, had it not been for them, would today be a subsidiary of Norwegians with less than a thousand employees. It is not expected that there will be major surprises in the Supreme Court’s rulings, however, one never knows. This highly political affair erupted in some other times, although also during the rule of HDZ. No one can predict where the source of political points lies and what winds might blow this time.

What other actors of the Spice affair have been doing in the meantime and which parts of the entire case have been neglected can be read in the new printed and digital edition of Lider.

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