"Nobody will be allowed any longer to threaten the ordinary citizen, public workers, journalists or state officials," Sanader told reporters during a visit to Pakrac in western Slavonia.
Petrac, who appeared before a court in Igoumenitsa on Thursday, wished the Croatian prime minister a lot of luck in his political suicide.
The businessman, for whom Interpol issued an arrest warrant, had been on the run since the kidnapping of General Vladimir Zagorac's teenage son in February last year. A year later the Zagreb County Court found him to be the mastermind of the kidnapping and sentenced him in absence to six years in prison.
His name has been repeatedly mentioned in the context of a network helping the runaway general Ante Gotovina, who was indicted for war crimes by the Hague tribunal in July 2001.