Reykjavik/Stockholm - Iceland's former prime minister Geir Haarde said on Friday he was confident he would be cleared of charges that he put the interests of the state at risk by failing to prevent the 2008 banking collapse.
“I am not worried about the outcome. I am innocent of all the charges,” Haarde, who resigned in January 2009, said at the end of the two-week trial. Sentencing is due at the end of April.
The court has heard testimony from Haarde and former and current government members, as well as bankers, including the former central bank governor, on events leading up to the collapse of Iceland's main banking groups Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir.
During the global financial crisis of 2008, Iceland's banks racked up debts worth up to 10 times the country's gross domestic product, according to some estimates.
The 60-year-old is the first minister to be tried by the special court, created in 1905. He could face a three-year sentence if convicted.
His lawyer Andri Arnason demanded that Haarde be acquitted, claiming that the law regulating the special court was outdated.
Prosecutor Sigridur Fridjonsdottir said earlier Haarde had been guilty of gross negligence, and that he should have put more pressure on the banks to sell assets, either using available legislation or making new laws.
She did not call for a specific sentence in her closing statement.
One of the witnesses was David Oddsson, former governor of the central bank and a former prime minister, who in his testimony said Haarde could not have done anything to prevent the collapse.
The case has proved divisive in the island nation, where a parliamentary commission in 2010 pointed to four former ministers for their role in the banking collapse. Haarde was the only one to be charged, sparking criticism from his conservative Independence Party. - Sapa-dpa