DPA
Belgrade
A Slovenian court has dismissed a corruption case against opposition leader and former prime minister Janez Jansa due to a 10-year statute of limitations, the STA news agency reported.
The District Court of Ljubljana ruled that the justice system ran out of time to pass a verdict in the decade-old case against Democratic Party leader Jansa and two co-defendants.
After receiving the verdict, Jansa tweeted that “the big bang from Murgle has fizzled out”, referring to the Ljubljana suburb where his political archrival, former Slovenian president Milan Kucan, lives.
Jansa, 56, has insisted on his innocence in the corruption case from the beginning, claiming that the alleged bribes he took in 2005 were orchestrated against him by political foes.
Jansa was convicted two years ago of taking bribes prior to Slovenia’s 2006 purchase of 135 armoured personnel carriers from the Finnish company Patria for €278mn ($310mn).
The former premier was sentenced to two years in prison but was first placed behind bars in June 2014 after running out of appeals and making other legal manoeuvres.
A month after he went to prison, Jansa was elected to the Slovenian parliament in snap elections and was allowed to attend parliamentary sessions.
Slovenia’s Constitutional Court quashed the guilty verdict in April on grounds of insufficient evidence and ordered a retrial.
Jansa now cannot be tried in the Patria case.
He was investigated again in 2015 for allegedly failing to report assets worth €500,000.
Jansa served as prime minister from 2004 to 2008.
He won a second term in 2012 but was forced to resign less than a year later.