Croatia's former prime minister Ivo Sanader pleaded not guilty Tuesday in his re-trial on charges of taking a multi-million-euro bribe from the boss of Hungary's MOL energy group, who is being tried in absentia.
Sanader is accused of having struck a deal with CEO Zsolt Hernadi in 2009 to pocket ten million euros (USD 11.4 million) in exchange for granting MOL control over Croatian oil and gas group INA.
The former Croatian premier was found guilty in 2012 of the charge, but his eight-and-a-half-year jail sentence was overturned in 2015 by the constitutional court, which called for a re-trial.
Sanader pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, a Zagreb court spokeswoman told AFP.
The defence attorneys for Hernadi refused to enter a plea as they insisted some documents should be translated into Hungarian, she said.
The oil group MOL - whose main shareholder is the Hungarian government - has previously denied the bribe accusation.
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MOL has a 49 per cent stake in INA while the Croatian government holds a 44 per cent stake.
Sanader, who headed two conservative governments from 2003 to 2009, faces several other graft cases.
On Monday he was sentenced to two and half years in jail for war profiteering, and acquitted of abuse of power charges in another trial.
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