Zagreb - Of the many businesses set up the family of Croatia's late president Franjo Tudjman, almost all have failed in the eight years since his death, the Jutarnji List daily said Thursday.

Tudjman, known as the "father of the nation," set Croatia on its course to independence from Yugoslavia and war with it at the start of his 1991-1999 iron-handed rule.

During that time, the Tudjmans made ice-cream cones, had a trading firm, imported household appliances, owned a shooting range and even controlled the Kaptol Bank - all in all, some dozen entities estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars by local reports.

The family was widely accused of corruption and abuse of Tudjman's authority for personal interests. His daughter Nevenka is still on trial on corruption charges.

The most influential and possibly richest family in Croatia eight years ago, today it has little influence and of all the businesses, only the Lady Sram restaurant works and only one trading firm, the Domovina (Fatherland) Trading, has not shut down, the report said.

A humanitarian organization for Croatia's children run by Tudjman's widow Ankica also survived the strongman's passing to stomach cancer in 1999, but with donations dwindling from 3 million euros (4.6 million dollars) in the late 1990s to a third of that now.

Ankica and Nevenka have also kept their villa in the elite quarter of Zagreb.
Tudjman's Belgrade-born grandson, Dejan Kosutic - once a bank- owner in Croatia - has been trying to start a business in his hometown since 2002.

The Tudjman family's controversial rise to huge wealth is not untypical of leaders in former Yugoslavia.

The late Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic's family has allegedly drained billions of dollars through a network of murky businesses - they, however, have moved their wealth to Russia where they have found shelter from Serbian subpoenas. (dpa)