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Indictment filed in Finland for sale of Patria armoured vehicles to Croatia

ZAGREB, June 28 (Hina) - Finland's state prosecutor on Friday announced indictments against the former managing director and two former employees of the Patria Vehicles Oy company, accusing them of using bribery for the sale of Patria AMV armoured vehicles to Croatia in 2007.

State prosecutor Jukka Rappe and county prosecutor Timo Kokkomaki also seek punishment for Patria Vehicles Oy, a Patria Group subsidiary renamed Patria Land Services Oy.

The three Finnish citizens are charged with using an intermediary to promise or give a bribe to a former Croatian president and a former director of Croatia's Djuro Djakovic company as a reward for favoring the purchase of Patria vehicles for the Croatian military, Rappe's office said in a statement without identifying anyone.

The events occurred during the term of former Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, who dismissed the suspicions in April 2012, saying he did not participate or in any way influenced the decision to buy the armoured vehicles.

The Djuro Djakovic director at the time in question, Bartol Jerkovic, also dismissed the suspicion of corruption.

Finland's state prosecutor contends that the Finns promised and paid part of a bribe in the amount of five per cent of the armoured vehicles' purchase price.

Patria offered the vehicles to Croatia in 2005 for more than EUR 350 million. A sales contract was signed in 2007 for 84 vehicles for EUR 112 million.

After that, according to Finland's state prosecutor, Patria Vehicles Oy paid EUR 1.5 million as part of a bribe via an intermediary in Austria.

Other money transfers in Austria have raised suspicion of money laundering and corruption. An investigation of Patria began in Finland in 2009 and a year later Finland, Austria and Croatia set up a joint task force. The joint probe has resulted in indictments in Finland, Austria and Slovenia.

Former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa was recently sentenced in Ljubljana to two years' imprisonment and fined EUR 37,000 for taking a bribe for the purchase of 136 armoured vehicles for the Slovenian military for EUR 278 million.

Jansa, like the Croatian and Finnish suspects, has dismissed the charges.

Hans-Wolfgang Riedl, a weapons lobbyist, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in Vienna in April for corruption in the sale of Patria armoured vehicles to Slovenia. A court found that he transferred hundreds of thousands of euros to Slovenia in 2006 so that Patria could land the sales deal.

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