During the trial of MOL (a Hungarian oil and gas company) and Croatia s former prime minister, the Zagreb Court has infringed the EU s norms regarding the right to a fair trial, according to independent jurists commissioned by MOL Chief Zsolt Hernadi s lawyers to monitor the legal procedures.

The File Communications Agency sent the summary of the report prepared by Judge Kai Ambos, professor at Gottingen s Georg-August University, and Lord David Anderson, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, to Hungary s state news agency (MTI) on Thursday. In accordance with the protocol regulating the activity of invited observers, the experts have stressed their obligation to remain neutral during the trial, the agency said.

In its first-instance ruling, the Zagreb County Court found Zsolt Hernadi, chief executive of the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, guilty of bribery. According to the verdict, Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader agreed, in return for the bribe, for MOL to take over the management of Croatia s INA energy company. The court had issued its ruling shortly before Croatia assumed the EU s six-month rotating presidency.

In their interim report, the independent legal observers (trial monitors) accuse the Croatian public prosecutors of bias, arguing that they have violated the defendants right to a fair trial.

According to the experts 182-page interim report, the Zagreb County Court has failed to comply with the requirements of an independent and impartial court of justice”. The report calls judge Turudic „biased towards the Croatian state”, noting that the judge has „failed to respect, inter alia, Article 6 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)”.

„We have monitored the evidentiary procedure from its commencement on 4 February, 2019 to its unexpected conclusion on December 16, 2019. In our view, the actions taken by USKOK (Croatia s state-run anti-graft taskforce) during the procedure – as well as the quality of this phase of the trial – showed a lack of compliance with the internationally accepted rules of fair proceedings in several respects,” the report says.

The report highlights a wide range of serious irregularities during the procedure, such as the obstruction of defence and failure to provide adequate preparation time for the lawyers, or excluding the public at key points during the trial without recording it in the log book (thereby breaching the defendants right to a public hearing), and the appointment of a defence attorney (ex officio) by the court, which violates the defendants right to select their own lawyer.

In addition, the prosecution relied on questionable witnesses who, as a result of their alleged involvement in money laundering, are subject to an ongoing criminal investigation. The interim report blames USKOK for „systemically” failing to examine the prosecution s crown witness Robert Jezicand and his business partner Stephan Hurlimann, a Swiss lawyer.

„It seems that Hurlimann s role in the money laundering case, related to the alleged blackmail, has not been fully investigated. USKOK has failed to examine significant aspects of the case pertaining to Jezic, and the investigation also raises the problem of bias. Jezic s credibility is questionable by reason of his complicity and material benefit of €5 million, as well as his personal interest in MOL Chief Zsolt Hernadi being convicted,” the report says.

Jezic – who admitted to being an intermediary in the delivery of the alleged bribe amounts – has failed to comply with the court s order to return the €5 million he had received for the alleged bribery transactions.

It was also established that USKOK has unreasonably ignored some key testimonies by oil consultant Imre Fazekas and Russian oil company owner Mikhail Gutseriyev, revealing that the €5 million in question were, in fact, stolen by Jezic. The amount was meant to assist secret lobbying efforts on behalf of Moscow, helping Russia to gain control over a new European gas transit route crossing deepwater oil port on the island of Krk.

Due to serious irregularities, the trial cannot be considered fair, and the ruling – issued shortly before Croatia took over the European Council presidency – seriously violates EU and international standards for a fair trial, the report concludes.