Last night Nikola Matekovic turned himself in to the prison being accompanied by his lawyer Milenko Umicevic who on Wednesday morning confirmed for Hina the information about his client's surrender.
In February 2005, Matekovic, who was put on trial in absentia, was sentenced to a year and half in prison by the Zagreb County Court for his involvement in the abduction of General Vladimir Zagorec's son. The then 17-year-old Tomislav Zagorac was kidnapped in front of the family house in Zagreb on 23 February 2004, and was released four days later after his father paid 750,000 euros, half the ransom demanded.
The prison sentence for Nikola Matekovic was confirmed by the Supreme Court in April this year. Owing to the fact that he was tried in absentia, Nikola Matekovic can ask for a retrial, but his lawyer does not believe that he will do so.
Nikola's elder brothers Ivan and Libero, who were sentenced to seven and one year in prison respectively, asked for the retrial and according to the decision made this April by the Supreme Court, the retrial of Ivan Matekovic, perceived as one of the masterminds of the abduction, and his brother Libero, is to be organised.
Ivan Matekovic was on the run until late August last year when he was nabbed by the police in the Novi Zagreb residential area. A month after his brother's apprehension, Libero Matekovic turned himself in to the police.
A group of 10 men were found guilty of Tomislav Zagorec's abduction. Controversial businessman Hrvoje Petrac, who is believed to have masterminded the kidnapping, is the only one of them still not available to the Croatian judiciary. Petrac was arrested by Greek police in early August 2005, and is now in a Greek prison waiting to his extradition to Croatia where he is to serve a term of six years in jail for the abduction.
Petrac's son Novica was also convicted for this crime to three and a half years in prison.
This April the Croatian Supreme Court turned down appeals by Hrvoje and Novica Petrac and upheld the verdict pronounced by a lower-instance court sentencing the senior Petrac to six years and the junior Petrac to three and a half years in prison for their involvement in the kidnapping of the under-age Zagorec.
Other men involved in the February 2004 kidnapping, Marinko Gosuljevic, Sinisa Jezovita and Stevo Smrcek, will also go on trial again, just as Ivan and Libero Matekovic..
The remaining two convicts found guilty for this crime are Ivan Bastalic, who was given a sentence of three years and two months, and Dario Jaic, who was sentenced to one year in jail and was released from the prison when the Supreme Court confirmed the ruling this April given that he had already been in custody and jail longer than that period.