In its note to Mljet municipality, the Municipal Prosecutor's Office said that the land was part of a program on forest management and within the jurisdiction of the Croatian Forest Management company, reads a statement issued by the Dubrovnik County Prosecutor's Office and signed by State Prosecutor Ante Ruskovic.
Despite the note, the Dubrovnik Municipal Court on September 10 allowed Mljet municipality to register its ownership rights over the land in question.
Since the invitation for bids for the purchase of 225,837 square metres of land was published in the Official Gazette on August 4, 2004, the land was not registered in land books as the property of Mljet municipality at the time.
The Dubrovnik Municipal Prosecutor's Office lodged an appeal against the Municipal Court's ruling and in January 2005 the County Court upheld the appeal and ordered that the ownership rights of Mljet municipality over the land in question be removed from land books.
Mljet municipality disregarded the note from the Municipal Prosecutor's Office and on September 15, 2004, concluded a sale agreement with the Adria Sistem d.o.o. company from Zagreb.
The County Prosecutor's Office said that it was making efforts to settle the problem of unlawful ownership of state-owned land on the island of Mljet.
The recent sale of land on Mljet island to one of Russia's richest people Vladimir Jevtushenko is one of the most current topics in Dubrovnik. The case was opened by a local politician and Croatian Democratic Union MP, Frano Matusic, who told the press last month that Mljet municipality head Nikola Hajdic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) had in 2004 illegally sold 220,000 square metres of land for 2.8 million euros.
Hajdic dismissed the claims, insisting that there was nothing controversial about the sale, because the land was owned by the municipality and was sold lawfully.
Matusic believes that the County Prosecutor's Office should press charges against Hajdic.
The government and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader have been notified of the case.
Sanader has said that the case represents a major violation and that those responsible for it must be brought to justice. The PM has also announced the possibility of dissolving the Mljet Municipal Council and calling local elections.