"The HND believes that media reports published in recent days and months about the HDZ's (Croatian Democratic Union) slush funds, the criminal syphoning of money from state-owned companies, very suspicious and very probably unlawful collection of money for the 2005 presidential campaign of Jadranka Kosor and for the campaign for the 2007 parliamentary elections, are of exceptional interest to the Croatian public," reads a statement released by the HND.

The HND recalled that senior HDZ official Vladimir Seks himself had stated that the party's former president Ivo Sanader had established a parallel system of financing within the party, which it said was evidence of a widespread previous practice of financing the party from slush funds.

"We believe that resolving this scandal is important for the entire country, for its present and its future. The HND therefore supports all reporters who work on this important topics," reads the statement signed by HND president Zdenko Duka and Ana Raic Knezevic, head of the HND's reporters covering court cases.

They recalled that USKOK said on Wednesday that it would summon for questioning all people who claim to have obtained "from sources close to the investigation" information gathered in the process of collecting evidence, namely confidential witness statements, and that it would thus gather information and facts necessary to launch criminal proceedings.

"In that regard, the HND reminds all reporters who could possibly be summoned for questioning to exercise, without any legal consequences, their professional right not to reveal their sources," the HND said, adding that USKOK's statement of Wednesday actually confirmed the authenticity of the information published, thus preventing possible slander suits against journalists.

"USKOK has the right to conduct interviews over the leaking of information from investigations, but when a party and state affair is big as this one, we consider USKOK's statement about interviewing reporters as a politically prompted attempt to intimidate reporters and the media to make them stop dealing with that topic, which is intolerable."

The statement announcing that USKOK would summon for interviews all people claiming to have obtained, from "sources close to the investigation", statements given as part of USKOK investigations was issued after the media recently published a confidential statement on HDZ slush funds given by former HDZ accountant Branka Pavosevic and after Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said the government would "make effort to establish what is going on and who is possibly giving statements which at this stage of the investigation should not be available to the public."