The head of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party caucus in parliament and party vice-president, Andrija Hebrang, said in an interview with Croatian Television on Tuesday night that former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, who earlier in the day testified before a parliamentary commission investigating the privatisation of the INA oil and gas company, had fallen into his own trap by claiming that all government members had had all relevant information about INA's privatisation, which, Hebrang said, was not true.
"No member of the (HDZ) presidency, and I am the party's vice-president, had the agreement in question," Hebrang said, adding that they did not have all relevant facts.
"The ministers did not have time to study (the documents), they could only cast a glance at them," Hebrang said in the interview in a late night news broadcast.
He explained that the ministers were given annexes to the privatisation agreement, which regulate very important matters, only on the day when the government voted on the amendments, 29 January 2009.
He went on to say that Sanader's claiming that every government member had known everything that was going on was an attempt to prepare the ground for some other, much more serious topics that were about to be raised.
Hebrang also dismissed as untrue Sanader's claim that he left politics because he was not willing to trade Croatia's territory for membership in the European Union.
He recalled having to hold a speech in parliament on the day of Sanader's resignation and calling Sanader on the phone shortly before that to ask him what he should say about the reason for his resignation. Sanader's reply was "You'll think of something".
Hebrang said that he speculated in his speech that the reason for Sanader's resignation was the blockade of Croatia's EU talks, and that Sanader later phoned him, laughing and saying "Great, as of now I'll be saying the same".
Josip Leko, a senior official of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and member of the parliamentary commission investigating INA's privatisation, who was also a guest in the news broadcast, explained why the SDP insisted that Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor should testify before the commission.
He said that former Deputy PM Damir Polancec and Sanader both claimed that everyone in the HDZ leadership and the government was familiar with and even took part in the making of the agreement on INA's privatisation, and that since the Prime Minister was dismissing their claims as untrue, it was only logical to summon her to testify before the commission.
Hebrang said that Kosor did not take part in the work of the government task force in charge of INA's privatisation and that therefore she could not say anything about it, as stated by all members of the task force.
