Other indictees in the case - the four Ivankovic-Lijanovic brothers - the chairman of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Constitutional Court, Mato Tadic, and Constitution Professor from the Sarajevo-based Law School, Zdravko Lucic, were cleared of charges.
Last year when the indictment was issued against Covic and the others, he was replaced from in the office of a member of the Bosnian tripartite presidency.
The trial commenced in October 2005 before a trial chamber led by American Richard Gabelein, who today explained that the trial chamber established that Covic was the only one to be held responsible for the unlawful exemption of the Lijanovic company from paying taxes on the import of raw material for some meat products.
According to the court, in his capacity as the Fiance Minister of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina when this happened in June 2000, Dragan Covic allowed that the the budget of the Croat-Muslim entity be damaged by about 950,000 euros.
While he was the federal finance minister, the Finance Ministry issued a regulation in contravention to the laws, which enabled the said company to import the raw material paying no extra import taxes.
The Bosnian Foreign Trade Ministry asked for the revocation of the disputable regulation, but it was rescinded not before April 2002, the trial chamber said.
The court found Covic responsible for failing to annul the regulation on time and for failing to protect the financial interests of the Bosnian Federation which he should have done in his capacity as the finance minister.
The court also ordered Covic's detention in custody until the expiry of the appeals procedure.
Both the prosecution and the defence have a time term of 15 days to file appeals.
Covic's lawyer, Josip Muselimovic, said he would appeal the verdict, and added that he was particularly flabbergasted by the fact that the court insisted on Covic's detention as it fears that he may run away and fail to appear before the court during the appeals procedure.