A three-member panel of judges presided by Briton Michael Simmons sentenced Rupcic in Sarajevo on Thursday, thus okaying a plea bargain Rupcic made with prosecutor John McNair when he accepted liability for four of 21 counts he was charged with.
Rupcic's sentence will include the nine months he has spent in detention.
Rupcic was a defendant in the Hercegovacka Banka case, in which the main suspect is former Bosnian Presidency member Ante Jelavic. Another defendant in the case, former Bosnian Federation (Croat-Muslim entity) Defence Minister Miroslav Prce, earlier this month pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment.
McNair today for the first time presented some details which indicate that Jelavic and retired Croatian Army General Ljubo Cesic were the masterminds of an operation aimed at redirecting funds which Croatia set aside as assistance to Bosnian Croats.
McNair said Rupcic was a mere executor, which the judges took as a mitigating circumstance when deciding about his sentence.
Rupcic is charged with redirecting in 1997 and 1998, in his capacity as assistant federal defence minister in charge of finances, 500,000 kuna which Croatia paid into the account of the Bosnian Federation Defence Ministry to the Bosnian Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BH) party.
In 2001, in his capacity as director of the Mostar-based Hercegovina Osiguranje insurance company, Rupcic paid EUR250,000 from the company's account to Croat members of the Bosnian Federation Army who expressed loyalty to the establishment of Croat self-rule, which had been initiated by the Jelavic-led HDZ BH.
The prosecutor also claimed that in 2001, Rupcic used Hercegovina Osiguranje money to unlawfully buy a EUR26,500 car for Dragan Covic, incumbent Bosnian Presidency member who at the time was only an HDZ BH official.
Said transactions, according to evidence collected by the Prosecutor's Office department for combating organised crime and corruption, were part of a much bigger plan whose masterminds were Jelavic and Cesic and whose chief executor was a former Hercegovacka Banka director, Velimir Lovric.
The strategy was to redirect funds which Croatia paid into the account of the federal Defence Ministry into private companies whose owners controlled Hercegovacka Banka by managing its investments and funds.
McNair did not indicate whether indictments might be issued against Cesic and Lovric.
He did agree with a request to prosecute Jelavic and former Hercegovacka Banka director Ivica Karlovic together, while friar Ivan Sevo, a former member on the bank's managing board, will be prosecuted separately.
When he made the plea bargain with McNair, Rupcic did not take on the role of prosecutiorial witness but like Prce, he will have to testify if summoned by the court.
(EUR1 = 7.6 kuna)