Jelavic, a former Croat member of Bosnia-Herzegovina's collective presidency and a former chief of the strongest Croat party in the country, HDZ BiH, is accused in the 'Hercegovacka Bank case' of misusing funds which Croatia sent to Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina while he was the defence minister of the Bosnian Federation, i.e. the Croat-Muslim entity.
The defence team called Bicakcic as a witness to prove that the indictment contained an incorrect allegation that Jelavic misused the funds which were a part the federal budget.
Asked by Jelavic's lawyer, Dragan Barbaric, about the funds sent from Zagreb, the witness Bicakcic, who was the Federation's Prime Minister from 1997 to 2000, said that it was an open secret that financial assistance had been sent from Zagreb to the Croat component of the Bosnian federal army, adding that these funds had not gone through the federal budget.
"We did not have any insight in those funds," Bicakcic said adding that the situations was changed to some extent after the signing of an agreement on special parallel relations between Croatia and the Bosnian Federation in 1998, and some accompanying agreements, including the one referring to the assistance to the federal army.
Thanks to the assistance from Croatia, members of the army's Croat component had much higher incomes than their colleagues Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), the former premier said.
The Jelavic trial in the case of the Hercegovacka Bank will continue this week with the testimony of Bozo Rajic, a former chief of the HDZ BiH.