Modrić has denied all criminal allegations.
Real Madrid star Luka Modrić was questioned today at the State Attorney's Office in Osijek on suspicion of giving false testimony at the trial of Croatian football boss Zdravko Mamić at the Osijek County Court on 13 June. The interrogation started at 11 am and ended at noon, reports Večernji List on 5 July 2017.
Modrić arrived in the company of two attorneys, in an Audi with Spanish license plates.
The procedure was conducted behind closed doors. “I just came here to state my defence and tell the truth, like every time so far. My conscience is clear”, Modrić said and added that he was sure that it would be ultimately proven that he had not committed a criminal offence.
Modrić is suspected of changing his testimony at the trial, compared to a statement given earlier in the investigation. That part of the testimony is one of the crucial points of indictment against Mamić. The prosecution claims that Modrić lied when he changed his testimony in favour of Mamić. They say Modrić lied with regards to the date on which the annex to the contract between Modrić and Dinamo Zagreb was signed. The annex dealt with the distribution of money which Dinamo received as compensation for allowing Modrić to transfer to Tottenham.
“He was examined as a witness, and he untruthfully stated that the annex to the contract (on the basis of which he had the right to 50 percent of the transfer fee) was signed on 10 July 2004, when he signed his first professional contract with the club,” explains the State Attorney’s Office. Modrić said that he signed the same annex at each extension of the contract with Dinamo.
“The suspect, after having been presented with part of his own testimony given during the proceedings before the Office for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime (USKOK) on 30 August 2015, untruthfully explained that at USKOK, while talking about conversations between him and the accused [Mamić] regarding the division of the transfer fee, he was actually referring to the private contract between him and the accused, as well as the fact that he never mentioned to USKOK that the annex to the contract was signed later, after he had already started playing for the foreign football club,” concluded the State Attorney’s Office in its statement given in June.
The prosecution in the Mamić case claims that the annex to the agreement between Modrić and Dinamo, which allowed Modrić to receive half of the transfer fee, was not signed in 2004, but in 2008, when Modrić had already left Dinamo. The prosecution also claims that Modrić and Mamić divided the money between themselves, money that was legally supposed to be received by Dinamo. In his initial interrogation at USKOK, Modrić admitted that the date on the annex was a forgery, but at the trial last week he changed his testimony and answered many of the other questions with “I do not remember.”
