SARAJEVO (Reuters) -Bosnia’s top court released former Dinamo Zagreb coach Zoran Mamic on Wednesday following his detention on an international arrest warrant issued by Croatia after he had fled to Bosnia to evade serving a jail sentence for fraud.
Mamic was set free but had to hand over his personal documents and was ordered to show up at court each week. The court said it had not considered Croatia’s extradition request for Mamic because it had not received it yet.
After Mamic’s four-year-and-eight-month prison sentence was confirmed in March, he failed to show up to serve the sentence last week, and it turned out that he escaped to Bosnia. Mamic is also a Bosnian citizen.
Mamic has asked to serve the sentence in Bosnia, but Croatia refused. He was sentenced to jail together with his brother Zdravko Mamic, former Dinamo executive president.
They had been charged together with another former Dinamo official and one tax expert for tax evasion worth 12.2 million kuna ($1.98 million) and for embezzlement of 116 million kuna from transfers of players from Dinamo.
The Mamic brothers denied any wrongdoing. Zdravko Mamic, also with a dual citizenship, now lives in Bosnia which refused to extradite him.
Zoran Mamic resigned in March as Dinamo coach.
(1$ = 6.15 kuna)
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
